Ryan Harris: learned how to curb his enthusiasm © Getty Images

Saturday, 10th March
Vacancies in the Indian batting line-up do not occur that often, and now that Rahul has gone, the hopefuls are queuing round the block. Like casting directors for a Bollywood blockbuster, BCCI selectors have been leafing through headshots and resumes for several days, but nothing has yet caught their eye. So today this advert appeared in the Indian batting industry’s trade newspaper, The Bling and Nurdle:

A position has recently become available in our top order. The successful candidate must be good in a crisis, with strong damage limitation skills and considerable firefighting expertise. Experience of working with the elderly an advantage. Some foreign travel necessary but this will be kept to a minimum. Ability to duck essential. Apply to Mr Srinivasan, Super Kings Mansions, Cement Street, Mumbai.

Sunday, 11th March
If you thought that the diabolical debacle in Dubai surely meant the end of England’s spell as head prefects at the Test Cricket Academy, you were wrong. It looks like Strauss and chums will still be hanging on to the shiny mace of supremacy come April Fools Day, thanks to an old ally.

Dampness has long been the English cricketer’s friend, and scientists at the Met Office have now found a way to harness the natural sogginess of the British Isles. With South Africa poised to beat New Zealand last week, a special cumulonimbus task force was despatched to the southern hemisphere and today it drizzled on their parade.

It will only get harder for the challengers. They think they’re coming for a pleasant stroll around the shires this summer, but they’re in for a world of rain. Millions of gallons of water have been stored in the ECB’s underground reservoir, ready to be dumped on Graeme Smith’s head if it looks like his team might be winning.

As Churchill would have put it, we shall fight them in the drizzle, we shall fight them in the showers, we shall fight them in the downpours and in the puddles; we shall never surrender, because we’ll be wearing waterproof trousers.

Tuesday, 13th March
Ryan Harris has put his absence from Australia’s Caribbean holiday down to the fact that he was trying too hard in recent games. This is a timely reminder for all of us. Dabble, dip your toe in the water or languidly go through the motions, but there really is no point in trying hard. It simply isn’t worth it.

Life teaches us this lesson time and again. You try too hard to impress a certain girl but somehow end up falling head first into a duck pond or crashing your penny farthing into a fruit stall. You develop a hunched back and a squint from too much revision, yet the chap who spent his term playing gin rummy strolls to an A.

Not really trying is the way to go. The great thinkers of human civilisation, from Oscar Wilde to Baloo, are all in agreement. That’s why David Gower is one of my favourite players. It’s not that he didn’t try, I’m sure he did. But he didn’t look as though he was trying, and that is immensely encouraging to the rest of us.

So now you know what to do, Ryan. Curb your natural Australian tendency to work hard and ease back a little. Cultivate a bored expression. Saunter to deep fine leg with an air of ennui. Perhaps sip a cup of tea or have a flick through the racing pages whilst leaning on the advertising hoardings. You’ll be back in no time.

David Hussey: not particularly fond of beer and barbies either © Getty Images

Sunday, 26th February
One of the joys of cricket is the opportunity it gives us for vigorous debate whenever another little hole is found in the tattered fabric of the blessed Laws. Is the ball dead, or is it merely resting? Is it six if a stray platypus catches the ball and carries it over the boundary rope whilst keeping one webbed foot on the field of play?

This kind of stuff also lets us bask in the illusion that, through the scrutiny of a few densely written paragraphs of cricket scripture, ideally read aloud from a tatty old Wisden, we can pin down the whole messy business of reality, dig out the pure truth and then batter everyone about the head with it until they agree with us.

India’s captain knows all about this kind of thing, and having been overly generous at Trent Bridge last year, he wasn’t letting Hussey minor get away with anything today. But after an awful lot of chin-scratching, Hussey II did wriggle free of the clutches of Law 33, on the grounds that he had handled the ball to avoid injury.

So perhaps Law 33 needs a new paragraph, defining the difference between “injury” and “Mummy, I got an owie!” Besides, I thought Antipodean cricketers were tough. If Little Huss is claiming that he was scared of a tiny bruise on his tummy, then it’s time he thought seriously about whether he’s entitled to that Australian passport.

Monday, 27th February
Once upon a time, television viewers were enthralled by shows like Dallas, Dynasty and, if their evenings were particularly empty, The Colbys; glamorous melodramas featuring ludicrous characters and preposterous financial goings-on that almost always ended in tears, recriminations and implausible, series-ending cliff-hangers.

But in recent years, cricket lovers have been able to follow their own high-finance and skulduggery-themed soap opera. The Shires is a tale of colossal egos and massive financial incontinence amongst the deceptively comatose world of county cricket. It’s a tale of dodgy architects, high-maintenance South Africans and crazy fixture lists.

Above all, it’s the story of 18 desperate men, men who know there’s only so much subsidy money to go round. In an earlier episode, the chairman of Hampshire had sold his ground to the council. Today he sold the name of the ground that he’d sold to the council to a company named after a random selection of Scrabble tiles.

From now on, Hampshire cricket lovers, proud heirs to the legacy of Hambledon, will be privileged to call the place where they watch their cricket the Ageas Bowl. “Ageas” is from the Latin “agere” meaning “unpronounceable drivel” but was also the name of the Greek God of Financial Disaster. I can’t wait to see what Hampshire do next.

Some troublemakers might ask what all the hospitality gazebos, satin-furnished conference suites, innovative financial arrangements and Surrealist pavilions have got to do with identifying and developing talented England cricketers? This is, after all, the thing for which counties receive the annual subsidies that keep them afloat.

But, like Dallas, The Shires shouldn’t be taken seriously. It is a fantasy world populated with implausible men in suits pretending that their heavily subsidised debt-ridden sports clubs are proper businesses. And, like the best soaps, it will end with a bang as several counties commit financial suicide in the final episode.

Rahul Dravid disapproves of the ball's persistent attempts to kiss the stumps as if it will turn into a prince © Getty Images

Thursday, 29th December
Last week, Sri Lanka looked like a contingent of nervous schoolboys who’d just discovered they’d been booked to fight the lions in the Coliseum. But as any Roman Coliseum-goer would tell you, lions are notoriously inconsistent performers; savage powerful beasts one day; harmless sleepy pussycats the next.

And today, the Sri Lankans had the home side lying on their backs with their legs in the air, having their tummies tickled. The defining moment came when Big Jacques, who never gets a double pair, got a double pair; diverting the ball onto his helmet from where it rebounded with the dismal clunk of failure into the palms of short leg.

As the probability of defeat became a certainty, I watched a succession of South Africans miss a succession of straightish ones in a parade of increasing ineptitude until Marchant de Lange’s bails exploded and the Sri Lankans began whooping and screaming like I would do if I’d won the lottery after having been widely ridiculed for my inability to pick a single correct number in the last six months.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the hemisphere, Australia and India were doing their bit to undermine confidence in the batting industry with some shots that were so ugly that if they’d occurred in Victorian times, they would have been featured in a Travelling Show of Hideous Freaks. Apparently responsible batsmen appeared incapable of coping with the hint of a rumour of a suggestion of lateral movement.

Why should this be? It is generally accepted that pitches don’t talk, but if they did, the strip at the MCG would probably say something like this: “Don’t blame me, mate, I didn’t do anything. I’m not even wearing any grass today. And stop spitting on me. You don’t see me expelling unpleasant fluids on Ricky Ponting’s boots, so why’s he got to dribble all over me? Bloody hooligans! Players of today got no respect.”

First, Australia, having pocketed a lead, attempted to commit cricket suicide by inside-edging themselves to death and at 27 for 4 were tottering like a tray of full champagne glasses being carried by a blindfolded waiter on rollerblades down a freshly polished marble staircase. Then Ponting and Hussey slapped the innings vigorously about the face, told it to pull itself together and batted properly for a bit.

They were helped by the fact that India continue to take the lazy angler approach to the business end of Test matches. They may have the opposition on the hook, but they really can’t be bothered to reel them in. Set just about enough to win, Dravid, who never gets bowled twice in a match, was bowled for the second time in the match and India collapsed softly like a sponge cake left out in the rain.

Still, I’m not complaining. This global batting crisis makes for thrilling cricket. Hopefully we’re in for a Great Batting Depression, in which centuries are rarer than cliché-free cricket commentary and wickets always fall at the rate of five a session.

Friday, 30th December
Without David Warner, the Thunderers of Sydney have only Gayle to bring the big hits at the top of the innings. But this is not a problem. Bangalore managed to almost win the Champions League with a team sheet consisting of Gayle and 10 somebody-or-others so there’s no reason to fear for the fate of the fluorescent green team.

And even though I’ve seen it several hundred times before, the Gayle repertoire still causes me to stop and stare. Today he hit a six off Shaun Tait, with no follow-on worth mentioning, that looked like a bored golfer hitting a nine iron onto the green or a retired colonel half-heartedly dead-heading his rose bush with a walking stick.

As is traditional on these occasions, the bowler was pictured trudging back from whence he came looking more rueful than a rue seller returning from a bad day at the market. Other bowlers tried different tactics. Shane Harwood tried swearing in the general direction of the ball, but that didn’t work either. This is the way with Twenty20 Gayle. Either he gets himself out, or you lose the game.

Moroccan gem dealer de Lange prepares to launch an extra-large ruby to test its quality © ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Monday, 26th December
The 21st century cricket watcher lives a blessed existence. If our forbears wanted to see that new South African with the daring haircut or India’s latest medium-paced fast bowler, they had to wait half a decade or so, until the tour schedule brought the team in question to home soil. A fresh-faced and sprightly protégé could become a gnarled and stooped veteran before half the cricket world had seen him in action.

But now, with simultaneous broadcasts, highlights, extended highlights, and the frankly unnatural capacity to record two things at the same time, the cricket fan can see every ball of a man’s career, from that first nervous push outside off to the tears he wipes away at his final press conference. In 3D.

So today, weighed down by too many helpings of fruit-based steamed puddings, it was my pleasure to be able to contemplate, from the depths of my sofa, two intriguing new characters in the international cricket soap opera: Ed Cowan and Marchant de Lange.

My first impression of Cowan is that he has more than a flavour of Simon Katich about him, although he doesn’t seem to shuffle about so much, and as far as I know, has yet to take his captain by the throat. de Lange should be a dealer in precious gems, with an office on a seedy side street in Marrakech, but he is in fact a strapping fast-bowler from the same Terminator-factory that brought us Morne Morkel.

But whether they go on to illustrious commentary careers or end up having to take demeaning jobs in sports administration, it is always a kind of privilege to see players take their first step onto the Test stage. Good luck to both of them.

Tuesday, 27th December
Today we heard from Mustafa Kamal, the Bangladesh Cricket Board chief, who has been mulling something over and clearly needed to get it off his chest.

“I was listening to the commentators during the recently concluded Pakistan series. Everyone mentioned there that we got bad decisions.”

I’m a lesser man than Mr Kemal, no doubt, but even a humble cricket fan can spot the problem here. Listening to commentators is not absolutely guaranteed to give you the full picture, reality-wise, and relying on commentators from your own country for the objective truth on these matters is rather like relying on a mother to give an unvarnished assessment of her son’s character.

“I cannot talk against umpires, being an ICC director… but I have seen that against weaker countries, there are more wrong decisions.”

Are there? Well, now I’m intrigued. Did he have any graphs, tables, or spreadsheets to seal the deal? After all, these days it ought to be perfectly possible to tot up the details of umpiring bloopers worldwide and thus demonstrate that x is greater than y. Sadly, Mr Kemal had not a single pie chart or indeed number to call upon, and his plucky attempt to scale Mount Conspiracy failed to reach base camp.

"Will Tendulkar get his 100th? That'll depend on whether he's willing to cut out his off-side shots again" © Getty Images

Wednesday, 21st December
Every year, at around this time, a respected figure addresses the faithful. As two Commonwealth nations prepare to do battle on the cricket field, what better time for a Christmas speech from fast-bowling royalty. It is time, ladies and gentlemen for HRH Glenn McGrath to give us his state of the cricket nation address.

What does Glenn think of it so far? Well, he’s quite upbeat. He thinks Ricky has got a big score not far away (I assume he means not far away in the future). He reckons the Aussie batting line-up will “do the business” (presumably a different kind of business to the business they did in Hobart, which was the sort of business that Lehman brothers were doing in 2008). And he thinks the Indian team will be surprised by Nathan Lyon (because nothing terrifies those veteran Indian batsmen like an inexperienced spinner).

But that is the beauty of the annual McGrath Oration. It doesn’t have to make sense, and unlike the mealy-mouthed bias that you get from a lot of ex-pros, it is unashamedly and gloriously partisan. And it always makes me smile. Sadly, the interviewer did not press Glenn for his series score prediction, but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say there was a strong chance of it ending in nil.

Thursday, 22nd December
Congratulations to Shakib Al Hasan, who is now officially the world’s No. 1 Test allrounder. He always struck me as the responsible adult in the Bangladesh team, the supervising teacher on a school outing. Tamim goes racing ahead on his bicycle, then gets a flat tyre; Mushfiqur and Junaid wander off and get lost; Shahadat forgets his packed lunch and everyone picks on Ashraful.

Then, along comes uncle Shakib to sort it all out.

He was at it again in Mirpur, gathering 144 first-innings runs, the highlights of which were the late cuts he played off the bowling of Umar Gul, deft as a brushstroke, the kind of shots that produce a contented sigh from the neutral viewer. And then he whipped out six Pakistani batsmen with those deceptive left-arm deliveries that rear and spit out of the dust like angry cobras.

Well done, Shakib. But this isn’t over. And if you’re a Sri Lankan batsman, be afraid. For even as you read this, Jacques Kallis is standing somewhere in the South African veldt, bare-chested, roaring to the heavens, like the Incredible Hulk, swearing to the cricket gods that he will have vengeance and regain his rightful crown. Probably.

Friday, 23rd December
The cricket watcher often has to wrestle with ethical dilemmas. Should I disturb my family by getting up at 3am to creep downstairs and watch live Caribbean Twenty20? Should you risk being late for your wedding in order to catch the end of the morning session at Lord’s? When you’re watching cricket on TV and someone scores a century, should you stand and applaud? *

Well here’s another one. When you have no connection whatsoever with a tournament that is being played in a foreign country, how do you choose which team to support? This is particularly tricky in the case of franchise cricket, where there is no history to go on, just a logo, a mission statement and a theme tune.

You could choose the team with the best name. But this isn’t quite shallow enough. These days I find I tend to gravitate towards the team with the most purple in their shirts. Hence my love of all things Kochi, my flirtation with Kolkata (was that really purple or had their black shirts faded in the wash?) and my new-found loyalty to the Hobart Hurricanes, the purplest team in the world.

Due to an administrative error, I had been supporting the Scorchers, but then I remembered that they were wearing orange and so I lost interest. Naturally they won immediately, although I did notice that the boundaries for their game yesterday had been downscaled to the proportions of a medium-sized bowling green. Clearly the tournament needs more sixes. Every day is Christmas Day for batsmen in the BBL.

On that note, Merry Christmas to all Page 2 readers.

* Obviously, the answer to all of these questions is yes.

Adept sous chef Phillip Hughes shows off his skills © Getty Images

Monday, 5th December
Rotation is, on the whole, a good thing. Without it, merry-go-rounds would be a good deal less merry; our cities would be congested with commuters on horseback*, and we would probably never have heard of Shane Warne.

But for the professional sportsman, rotation has a sinister side. It’s okay when it’s happening to someone else. Michael Hussey, for example, is quite relaxed about the prospect of bowler rotation. Batsman rotation, on the other hand, is quite possibly the end of civilisation as we know it, and The Huss is having none of it.

"From a batting point of view, if you're playing well you want to keep batting, and if things aren't going right, you want to keep playing so you can get that big score.”

Well, quite. But if batsmen in form shouldn’t be rotated and batsmen out of form shouldn’t be dropped, then the only ways out of the team would appear to be retirement, insanity or imprisonment. The Australian batting order is like the mafia, only less efficient and with more silly green hats.

Huss also has the solution to Phil Hughes’ minor technical flaw (his compulsion to play the cut shot regardless of the state of the game, the position of the fielders, the length of the ball or the direction in which he’s facing): just keep swinging, Phil. And if that doesn’t work, it so happens that Mike knows of a veteran left-hander who could step into the rotation-proof opening position at short notice.

Tuesday, 6th December
Like rare flowers, the talents of most professional cricketers bloom for a season, and right now it’s Mohammad Hafeez’s time in the sun. Having earlier opened the batting, Super Prof once again opened the bowling and once again skittled Tamim before the poor chap had had the chance to fully digest his pre-game energy bar.

The tricky thing about facing a ball from Hafeez is that although you know it probably won’t turn, there is always the outside possibility that it will. Today the Bangladeshi batsmen were braced for the one that didn’t, only to be undone by the revs on the one that did. He is my new favourite mystery spinner. (Ajantha isn’t allowed out to play very often these days.)

And it wasn’t just the Professor who was enjoying himself. With 11 twirlers doing their thing, the match was a festival of spin, as one after another, batsmen were ensnared like desperately struggling flies in a spider web.

At 50 for 1, it was Bangladesh’s game; there were congas in the crowd and the home side had just taken the batting powerplay. And then the floodlights failed. Umpires Cloete and Haque took a light reading, though they had to employ the special backlit display setting on their meters in order to read the numbers confirming that it was dark.

Umpires are obsessed with their light meters. If Asad Rauf were to feature in an episode of Scooby Doo, he’d be the one left behind in the spooky corridor of the haunted house because he’d stopped to take another reading. Mrs Bowden frequently has her bedtime novel confiscated by Billy on the grounds that his light meter says conditions are unfit for reading and the bedside lamp is casting dangerous shadows.

Anyway, eventually the lights came back on, Bangladesh remembered that they were Bangladesh, and crumbled to 119 all out.

*Although a world without cars would also mean a world without the television programme Top Gear, so it wouldn’t be all bad.

Ricky Ponting was not exactly chuffed to hear he would be the team's designated Lhasa Apso © Getty Images

Saturday, 26th November
Graeme Swann would like to scrap 50-over cricket and keep the other two formats. I have every sympathy. It reminds me of my French GCSE. I was a natural when it came to listening to the stuff and could read the lingo as easily as if I’d been raised in a fishing trawler off the coast of Marseilles. But ask me to speak it and the Hughes brain clammed up. I got my accents horribly muddled and my uncooperative vocal chords did unforgivable things to entirely innocent French vowels.

But there it was. Despite my protests, the headmaster insisted that the French oral exam was an essential part of the course and that he wasn’t about to remove it from the syllabus just because I wasn’t very good at it. C’est la vie, I suppose.

Monday, 28th November
One of the many benefits of following this great game of ours is that you are always learning new things about cultures other than your own. For example, until today, had anyone pressed me on my knowledge of New Zealand slang, I would have had nothing to offer but an embarrassed cough and an apologetic shrug.

But now I’m happy to say I have broken my duck when it comes to the vernacular of Christchurch and Auckland, thanks to Doug of the Bracewells.

“We’ve spoken about being more ruthless and having more mongrel…we are the underdogs and so it gives us that mongrel to go out and show that we’re better than them.”

Animals, whether be they monkeys or donkeys, are often a source of perturbation and antagonism in the modern game, so you have to admire Doug’s pluck, or as I gather they say in Wellington, his dog of mixed parentage, in introducing a canine theme.

But with sprains, tweaks and aches afflicting their opponents, are the tourists really the underdogs? I suspect Australia’s arrival on the field of play will have spectators nudging their companions and enquiring which one is Starc and whether the blond one is Lyon or Cutting or indeed Pattinson minor. Thank goodness Ricky is still there: the recognisable pedigree in a kennel full of pups and strays.

Tuesday, 29th November
The sun never sets on Twenty20 cricket and today our chum Chris Gayle popped up in Zimbabwe, playing for a team called the Tuskers*. The Tuskers lost out to the Rhinos in what sounds like an epic clash of horned titans on the African savannah.

Chris’ choice of franchise is an appropriate one. The elephant is a big beast, which generally prefers to potter about peacefully, doing its elephant thing, but when provoked can behave recklessly and is absolutely not one to back down. If, for example, you were to ask an elephant to apologise for trampling on your new shoes or snorting loudly as you were about to play a tricky snooker shot, he’d give you short shrift.

While the elephant isn't close to extinction yet, there is a dearth of tall, laidback Caribbean left-handed biffers in world cricket at the moment. So perhaps we should be grateful for the Twenty20 circus that prolongs the careers of such endangered and often unselected cricketers and enables us to enjoy them in their natural habitat: under floodlights, wearing gaudy polyester shirts.

* The article was amended at 1314GMT on November 30 to note that Gayle played for the Tuskers and not the Rhinos in the Stanbic Bank 20 Series

Martin Crowe accepts a cool oldster award on behalf of Ray Liotta © XXXX Gold

Saturday, 19th November
Do you believe in fairy stories? Me too, even though over the years I’ve been badly let down by the likes of Santa Claus, the Loch Ness Monster and those leprechauns that my friend said would definitely appear at the bottom of the garden if I sat under the magical oak tree for long enough. After three hours sitting in the wet grass, I learned an important childhood lesson: never put your trust in imaginary little people.

But there’s still one story I believe in, though like many, my faith is being tested. All summer I sat staring at the television, waiting in vain for it to happen. I’m referring of course to Sachin’s hundred. According to the man himself, it’s “just a number”. Well, yes it is, Sachin, but that’s like an astronaut saying Mars is just a planet. And as you know full well, cricket is a number freak’s paradise. In fact, numbers are cricket.

Consider the jellyfish: a beautiful, delicate, ethereal underwater presence. But take it out of the sea and all you’ve got is a pile of squelchy stuff. So it is with cricket. When it goes the way of the dinosaurs, what will be left of it? A few glorious paragraphs from Cardus, the odd faded photograph of Doug Bollinger, and great piles of fossilised numbers. Numbers are cricket’s skeleton, its structure, its substance.

And a hundredth hundred is such a beautiful thing numerically, it is the dot on the exclamation mark, that feeling of inner peace you attain when you’ve solved a sticky piece of algebra, dug the last weed from the vegetable patch or finished wrapping all the presents. So please don’t keep us waiting any longer Sachin, we really need this. I just hope this isn’t the tooth fairy episode all over again...

Monday, 21st November
For those of us who had wagered on an Australian win, the second Test was a rollercoaster, although not one of those tame theme-park affairs. No, this was a bowel-twisting, stomach-churning ride in a runaway mine cart with a wonky wheel, travelling at breakneck speed along a disused underground railway whilst being pursued by savage cutthroats waving sabres and unpaid utility bills.

Naturally, Patrick Cummins is my new hero. Not just wickets, but the endearing grin of a teenager who can’t quite believe he has been allowed to play with the grown-ups; and, gloriously, big, fat timely boundaries. As we know, teenage fast bowlers can let you down, but I’ve every confidence that he is the next Ray Lindwall, or possibly the next Craig McDermott or at the very least, the next Chris Matthews.

The only whiff of negativity about the thing was the realisation that this was all there was. It was like someone snatching a chocolate bar away from you just as you were getting to the crunchy bit in the middle, or the lights going up just as Hamlet says, “To be…” and the actors asking you to please remember to take your belongings with you on the way out and expressing their hope that you’d enjoyed the show.

Well, yes, it was a corker, I’d just like to see the rest of it to find out what happens.

Tuesday, 22nd November
It was with some sadness that I read that Martin Crowe had retired again. I didn’t see his final game. Despite my badgering the young lady at the call centre, she did not budge from her, in my opinion, rather inflexible stance that my subscription did not entitle me to live coverage of New Zealand club cricket. I wasn’t asking them to fly Gower, Botham and Hussain out there. I’d have settled for Bob Willis with a camcorder. Then I had to explain who Martin Crowe was. I despair of modern youth.

So as I say, I didn’t see the game, but I imagine that even at the age of nearly over the hill, there was more style, panache and gold-plated star-quality in his three-ball retired-hurt duck than all of the rest of us combined managed in the entirety of our willow-swishing careers. Enjoy your second retirement, Martin.

“And I’ll also be driving the team bus. Coach... bus, get it?” © Getty Images

Friday, 11th November
Andy Flower says that cricket boards are piling up fixtures with the same alacrity with which Samit Patel used to fill his plate at Nottinghamshire’s end of season charity buffet (“All you can eat for a fiver, bring your own plate and indigestion pills”) and that this global scheduling gluttony is all about the money.

So why this fixture frenzy? Where does all that money go? Well, some of it is invested in vital tools for hard-pressed cricket administrators: velvet sleeping masks, embroidered executive aromatherapy hand towels, and posterior-pressure-relieving cushions for those long afternoons in the boardroom.

But to take just one cricket board at random, an awful lot of the ECB’s money is shovelled in the direction of Team England: to keep Kevin Pietersen stocked up with silly sunglasses, to fund James Anderson’s twice-yearly cosmetic frown surgery and, without wishing to be indelicate, to retain the services of a certain Mr Andrew Flower.

So perhaps, in order to help the ECB kick their one-day cricket habit, Andrew and Andy could cut down on the expenses. How about asking the players to hand-wash their own whites? Replace the team of nutritionists with a weekly text message reminding their chaps to finish all their vegetables and lay off the chocolate éclairs?

And next year, rather than lounging around in business class, issue them with a map of Asia, a stout pair of walking boots and a tent and let them make their own way to Sri Lanka. As an incentive, the first 11 to arrive in Colombo will be guaranteed a spot in the first Test (unless one of them is Ravi).

Saturday, 12th November
Kamran Akmal likes the idea of cricket boards nosing around in players’ bank accounts, presumably on the look out for suspicious deposits under the name “A Bookie”. It’s an excellent idea, though I think the investigations should also extend to mattresses, recently dug herbaceous borders, and the inside pockets of new leather jackets.

Of course, some boards will find it easier than others. Sri Lanka Cricket, for instance, would smell a rat if they found that their chaps had any money at all, as they haven’t been paid since April. By definition, therefore, any income must have been obtained nefariously (although allowances would have to be made for Kumar Sangakkara’s earnings from his new part-time dog-grooming job – “Call Kumar for Kool Kanine Kuts!’ - and Angelo Mathews’ paper round.)

Monday, 14th November
According to assistant coach Justin Langer, Ricky Ponting is still a vital wingnut in the rickety suspension system of the rattly old banger that is Australian cricket.

“Ricky is great for morale; he makes Huss feel young, he keeps us entertained with stories of the old days when we used to win sometimes, and he knows how to read the racing form. Plus, he’s our regular poker dealer, ‘cause some of the other blokes aren’t great with the hand-eye co-ordination. I mean, you should see Mitch spray the cards all over the shop. And he’s the only one who can say, “Ah look…” with conviction, because between you and me, when Pup tries to do it, he sounds like Dame Edna Everage’s younger sister.”

When pressed on how long he thought the former Australian captain could continue in international cricket, Langer was supportive: “Ah look, Ricky will be around for a while yet. Monday I reckon. Possibly Tuesday. Depends if we make it to day five.”

And here Ricky Ponting shows us why the creased look is coming back into fashion © Getty Images

Wednesday, 9th November
We all tend to put off household repairs, and cricket boards are no different. In the 1990s, the TCCB had long chats about what needed to be done around the place, but invariably concluded that rising damp, woodworm and peeling wallpaper were probably cyclical and wasn’t it time for another cup of tea? In India, the BCCI have dealt with the nasty stain on their reputation that appeared last summer by covering it with that portrait of MS Dhoni lifting the World Cup that was hanging in the foyer.

But Australia have set about their renovation with gusto. Having thrown out much of the old furniture, including a rickety old Nielsen that was starting to look a little last decade, they are just waiting on delivery of a new coach. Steve Rixon is the favourite, mainly it seems because he has a strong relationship with Michael Clarke and bonding with the captain is now an essential skill for aspiring national coaches, right up there with looking good in a baseball cap and glaring menacingly at press conferences.

It seems Michael likes Steve’s sense of humour and Steve loves the way Michael says “Obviously, I’m disappointed…” and no doubt they’ll make a fine couple. But I’d give it to Justin Langer. I think he’d bring a wild unblinking, “Are you looking at me?” intensity to the role, as well as extreme martial arts (I’m picturing Mitchell Johnson head-butting planks of wood painted with Andrew Strauss’s likeness) and rose cultivation. Tending to these delicate blooms will help players to develop patience and attention to detail, whilst the thorns will fine-tune their swear reflexes.

Thursday, November 10th
Now that’s proper cricket. Twenty-three dismissals, two umpires with strained forefingers and a blown fuse in the electronic scoreboard. All kinds of records were broken, or at the very least, made to wobble precariously on their stands above a marble floor as these old rivals went all 18th century on us. It was a throwback to the days when a chap with a curved bat drank an ale or two, then went out to have a swipe and was lucky if he managed double-figure nicks.

For the connoisseur of the extravagant collapse, it was a treasure trove of witless batting. South Africa’s innings was more cavalier and reckless than the pink silk hat with ermine trim and peacock feathers that Prince Rupert wore on the morning of the Battle of Naseby, whilst Australia seemed to be trying to re-enact England’s 1994 amnesia-induced Trinidad collapse in which one player after another completely forgot what it was they had gone out to the wicket for or why they were holding a bit of wood in their hands.

There was so much traipsing to the wicket and back that it began to resemble a fashion show, showcasing this summer’s must-have combination of white shirts, extensive tattoos and grumpy expressions (“Ricky is modelling the latest in thigh enhancing body wear with 9lb willow accessory and a scowl”). But it was all jolly entertaining and somehow highly appropriate. What better way to start a frivolously short two-Test series than with an extremely silly two-and-a-half day Test match.

An ominous hush spreads through the room as Ijaz Butt gets an underling to tick off names of people yet to bring farewell gifts © Pakistan Cricket Board

Wednesday, 12th October
The long-awaited sequel to Bye Bye Birdie may not win many awards, but it will be warmly received. Bye Bye Butty is the story of one man’s slapstick boardroom escapades after he is mistaken for a senior cricket administrator and finds himself running the PCB for three years. A hilarious sequence of mishaps and pratfalls ensues, made all the more poignant by the fact that it’s based on a true story.

But after several scrapes and legal near-misses, the hapless impostor is rumbled and he is forced to clear his desk. The show includes a rousing rendition of “I Did It My Way (Badly)” as the hero is cheered off the stage by an enthusiastic audience and ends with a tearful lament entitled, “What Will We Write About Now?”, performed by a chorus of comedians, satirists and journalists.

So farewell, Ijaz and a big hello to Mr Zaka Ashraf! I’m sure his credentials are impeccable. For a start, he is, er, a banker. But hey, we shouldn’t hold that against him, after all, not all bankers are irresponsible sociopaths. What else has he got going for him? Well, he’s a friend of President Zardari. But hey, we shouldn’t hold that against him, not all friends of President Zardari get top jobs just because they’re friends of President Zardari, although come to think of it, most of them do.

But let’s give the man a chance. I mean, come on, he surely can’t be as bad as the last guy, can he? (That isn’t a challenge, by the way, Zaka).

Thursday, 13th October
Tim Neilsen retired a month ago and Australia still need a coach. But they might not get one for a while. Why’s that? James Sutherland, chief obfuscating officer of Cricket Australia, tried to explain:

“What I've always said is we will step up this process but we're not going to get ahead of ourselves. We understand the urgency but we're not going to compromise the process, because we have to make sure that we go through a rigorous process... It’s clearly a key focus…We’re in a position from today to go forward very quickly with that and roll that out over the next month or so, or whatever it takes…”

It reminds me of that short-lived sequel to Skippy the Bush Kangaroo: Jimmy the Administrative Wallaby. What’s that, Jimmy? There’s a little boy trapped down the well? And you think we need to set up a committee to facilitate a robust process to identify the key elements of the rescue package and ensure effective implementation to bring about a post-well-entrappage situation?

I think what Jimmy is saying is that they can’t choose a coach until the new general performance manager starts work and the new general performance manager doesn’t start work until the back end of November. I only hope he doesn’t choose his festive gifts in the same way as I fear it may be a lean Christmas chez Sutherland:

“I’m sorry dear, but I had to make sure there was a rigorous process in place and unfortunately my Yuletide Project Gift-Enabling Facilitator wasn’t able to take up his post until Christmas Eve, but I am confident that, going forward, we’ll be in a position to identify presents by the end of February or Easter at the latest…”

Mike Hussey accepts the Jane Fonda Man of the Series award © AFP

Saturday, 24th September

Those of us who are hauling around a little more personal freight than we’d like are always on the lookout for inventive ways to lessen the burden on our belt buckles, so the news that a man called Mike had recently lost four kilos in two days was very exciting. But having looked into the Hussey Diet, I should warn unwary fatties, his new plan, Lose Weight And Play Till You’re Forty-Eight, is a tough one to follow.

For a start, there’s a lot of preparation involved. You’ll need to take up professional cricket in order to get selected for the Australian Test team. And then it gets a lot tougher. Stage two involves flying out to Sri Lanka and batting for several hours in extreme humidity whilst wearing a heavy hat and an unnecessary amount of padding as other people take it in turns to throw leather balls at you.

On reflection, I think I’ll just reduce my daily doughnut ration and see how it goes.

The man himself, though, is a superb advertisement for the benefits of dehydration. He was back in the Champions League today, putting together a handy little eightysomething against Mumbai; a carefully assembled piece of craftsmanship, like a lovingly carved dresser or a pretty mahogany desk; only to see his handiwork smashed to pieces by Mad Malinga and his flailing axe of surrealism.

When Lasith arrived, Mumbai needed 54 runs in 4.4 overs, an Everest of a target. 4.3 overs later, the Chennai fielders were scattered like pigeons at a cat show and Malinga was leaning on his axe, a lumberjack surveying the stumpy remains of a once heavily wooded locale, having reached the summit a ball early. It was a cameo of chaos and it was all very silly indeed, which is why Twenty20 is so much fun.

Sunday, 25th September

After Friday’s South London show, it became apparent that spin was absolutely the thing and that pace bowling was so mid-September. So inevitably today’s get-together featured every known variety of the species. I had my Eye Spy Book Of Spinners out and was able to tick off a few lesser spotted dobblers, a long-legged googly and the extremely rare St Lucian Twirler, which earned me extra points.

Lots of spin means that red-blooded batsmen go big-hitting crazy, and so it proved. Swiping and lunging were very much in fashion in SE11, but the entertainment also included some slapstick goings-on mid-pitch as, in pursuit of a tiny total, England suffered a collective anxiety attack, running between the wickets with all the co-ordination and control of a bunch of squirrels let loose on the M25.

And on Spin Sunday, the big revs continued after the game, with England’s newest temporary captain showing a knack for truth massaging and reality bending that could easily land him a job with one of the major political parties.

“West Indies bowled and fielded well, but not well enough to bowl a team out for 88.”

So, Graeme, if it wasn’t West Indies who bowled you out for 88, whodunit? Aliens? The ghost of Jack Hobbs? Pigeons? Alas, he didn’t elaborate.

Tuesday, 27th September

I’m not an expert on bowling technique but according to Troy Cooley, Mitchell Johnson’s wrist is once again in the wrong position. It can’t be easy to have a wrist that keeps slipping into the wrong position. For instance, it must be particularly distracting when you’re trying to put your watch on. That he manages to hold down a place in the Australian side at all with such a disability is remarkable.

But Troy reckons he’ll be fine in South Africa. And why? Because there are approximately 33% fewer Test matches than there should be, and so 33% fewer “bad radar” days for Mitch. And why are there only two Tests? Because Test cricket is so popular that CSA are worried it is overshadowing the limited-overs version, and so they have shrunk the Test series for the good of the game. Probably.

A cricketer mistakes a blown-up candy-floss flavoured bubble gum for a cricket ball © PA Photos

Wednesday, 7th September
There are many strange stories in our great game, but few are stranger than the Legend of the Pink Balls. Long ago, back in the mists of time, men first spoke of cricket balls that were unlike any other. They were spherical, that much is true. They had a stitchy bit around the middle. You could rub them on your trousers. And if you dropped one on your little toe, you hopped around making strange sweary noises for a couple of minutes, just like with normal cricket balls.

But these balls were different. They were pink. Pinker than a fuschia blancmange served in the back of the Pink Panther’s pink Cadillac. No one really knew why they were pink. But the legend was that one day, perhaps before the next ice age, they would be used in a Test match and that when that happened, the night sky would be lit up by floodlights and the people would come in their thousands to marvel. Will the legend ever come true? Or is just a fairy story for schoolchildren and journalists?

Thursday, 8th September
Life is full of surprises. Who’d have thought that naming a stadium after a brutal dictator would eventually turn out to be a bit of a PR problem? After all, no one complained when Lahore City Council unveiled the Genghis Khan Equestrian Centre or when they inaugurated the Emperor Nero Leisure Centre. But with the man himself currently hiding somewhere in North Africa, disguised as a cactus, it’s probably time to think about a new name for the Gaddafi Stadium.

The Imran Khan Stadium has a nice ring to it. Or perhaps a senior cricket administrator might be persuaded to retire in exchange for having a venue named after him: the Butt Bowl anyone? Still, I think we can do even better. I am starting a petition to persuade the PCB to rename the place after Pakistan’s greatest cricket export. No, not the doosra. I’m talking about the Jhang Justice himself, the unflappable arbiter with the immaculate coiffure and the steely gaze. Ladies and gentleman, I give you: the Aleem Dar Arena. Let’s make it happen.

Friday, 9th September
Lots of people don’t understand John Buchanan. They snigger when he gets out his Big Book Of Thinking or when he reads a Klingon haiku. It is often the fate of the genius to be mocked by his contemporaries. Lots of people criticised General Custer and his “charge headlong in this direction and see what happens” strategy. But 135 years on, guess what? No one remembers them and Custer is a household name.

In appointing 50% of New Zealand’s selection panel, Big J didn’t go just left field. He climbed up onto his imaginary unicorn and rode it right the way across to the other side of the left field, skipped through the magical forest where the leprechauns live and followed the yellow brick road over the hills and far away to pixie land. And what were the pixies doing when he got there? They were playing bowls.

High performance lawn bowls, to be exact. But in case you’re worried, New Zealand fans, be reassured. Kim Littlejohn may not be able to pick Brendon McCullum out of a line-up but he is skilled in “performance focussed management” and “cultural change”. And by picking a squad full of players capable of trundling the ball along the ground slowly, he can help the Black Caps to take sweet revenge. Remember Trevor Chappell? Remember 1981? Well, soon it will be payback time.

His spiky hair adds a certain piquant flavour when Trent Copeland is eaten in a sandwich © Getty Images

Monday, 29th August
When two bitter antagonists decide to climb down off their high horses, throw away those handbags and give each other a big hug, it is a beautiful thing. Two weeks ago I shed a little tear of happiness when I read that the WICB and the WIPA (or it may have been the other way round) were going to get together and sort it all out over lattes and a plate of custard creams. Mr Ramnarine said that people were fed up of the arguing, they just want West Indies cricket back on top. Well, amen to that.

So how have they been getting along? I thought I’d check in today for the latest:

“WIPA to sue WICB for $20m!”

Oh dear. The ordinary cricket fan, who just yearns for the good old days when the West Indies were awe-inspiring cricket gods dispensing nose-breaking, jaw-crushing, leather-spanking justice finds this as bewildering and depressing as the news that there might be a Pirates of the Caribbean 5. The house of West Indies cricket is crumbling and these Lilliputians are sitting in the ruins, surrounded by rubble, arguing about what shade of blue will go best in the bathroom.

I’m not really interested in why the WIPA is suing the WICB, and though I’m not trained in the clairvoyant arts, I strongly suspect that I’ll be equally uninterested next week when the WICB announces its countersuit. As a parent I’ve been through this sort of thing before. It’s not important who started it, all that matters is that you both say sorry and agree to play nicely, and above all that we don’t hear another peep out of either of you, because frankly you kids are driving us crazy.

Tuesday 30th August
Having grown up watching Neighbours (which is, in my opinion, a far superior drama to the rather vulgar Home and Away) I have absorbed a lot of Australian without having to take a course. Bludgers, lamingtons, rellies, grog and stoked are all part of my vocabulary, stored in a tiny anteroom of my brain, gathering dust but ready to be used in the unlikely event that I can afford a week or two in Adelaide, or that I bump into Shane Warne at the moisturiser counter in Boots.

But ever so often I come across a phrase that reminds me that Australia is, in fact, an entirely foreign country and not just a hotter, dryer, wider version of Cornwall. Today, for example, I read this from Michael Clarke, referring to Trent Copeland:

“I’m a big wrap for him.”

I have heard it before, but if I’m honest, I have no idea what it means. An attempt to translate it logically leads to a disturbing conclusion - that Australia’s captain is so enamoured of his new seam-up, wobble-it-about guy that he wants to envelop him physically, as though he were a soft white flatbread and Trent a tasty pile of marinated chicken, onions and peppers. Is that the kind of captain-player bonding that the Argus review recommended? Or have I mistranslated?

Still, while I’ve no idea if he’s any good with a cricket ball, I do know that Australia’s new fast-bowling burrito has a great name. This is par for the course. Antipodeans* consistently outperform the British in this department. Your average Australian cricketer sounds like a tough, borderline-dangerous cove who knows how to operate a leaf blower and could arm-wrestle a dingo into submission if he had to. You’d feel safe if Trent Copeland had your back.

* New Zealanders, for example, usually have cowboy names. It is impossible not to be cool with a name like Jesse Ryder, Brendon McCullum or Dangerous Dan Vettori. Though I suspect Martin Guptil is really a quantity surveyor from Crawley.

First came Jason, then Freddie, then Phil © Getty Images

Wednesday, 24th August
We all like to see the cut shot. It’s a fine shot. However, the traditional view is that it is seen to best effect when played at a ball short and wide of the off stump. Well Phil Hughes isn’t having that. He believes the cut shot is the only shot a girl could ever need. He plays it to short balls, straight balls, bouncers, beamers and yorkers. He uses the cut shot to open cans of beer, mix pancakes and dry the dishes, which perhaps explains why his appearance on Masterchef Australia ended so messily.

He plays the cello with the cut shot, flips burgers with it and when he proposes he will go down on one knee in a fancy restaurant, have a waiter toss him the ring and smack it into the dessert trolley with a flashing blade. And now he’s back, to cut the Sri Lankans into ribbons, at least, until they work him out. It’s just a pity that Lasith Malinga has retired from Test cricket and we have been denied the sight of wee Hughesie attempting to cut one of the Slinger’s slow bouncers from a seated position

Thursday, 25th August
Saeed Ajmal has a secret weapon, a new delivery that he is not telling anyone about. These little escalations of the spin-bowling arms race are always fun. It reminds me of the Soviets and Americans trying to outdo one another with ludicrous secret weapons boasts, such as Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars toy or Kruschev’s claim that he had replaced the island of Cuba with a Cuba-shaped cheese that come the hurricane season would blow up to Florida and turn the Sunshine State into the Fondue State.

Anyone remember Shane Warne’s Zooter? It was the Loch Ness Monster of variations; we all wanted to believe it was real, but no one had ever seen it. So what does Ajmal have up his sleeve? I have no idea, but here some possibilities:

The One That Might Do
Looks like it might, but in the end it doesn’t.

The One That Doesn’t
Exactly like the one that might, except that this one definitely won’t

The KP Puzzler
Delivered with a left-armer’s action whilst wearing a Yuvraj rubber mask, this leaves KP looking as confused as a poodle in a hall of mirrors.

The 3D One
A recording of Ajmal bowling a long hop is projected onto a screen in front of the batsman who charges out of the ground only to be stumped by the real delivery. This is tricky to arrange as the batsman needs to be persuaded to wear 3D glasses.

The One That Worked Last Time
(See The Oval 2010)

Friday, 26th August
Ex-pros in the commentary booth are like wine; they mature slowly and may not be palatable for a decade or two. Well I think Nick Knight may need to keep the cork in for a while longer. Last time I saw him, he was reading a sonnet he’d written about Eoin Morgan. On Thursday I found him on my television screen again and he was still talking about Morgan, but now the sonnet had turned into a full blown aria from an opera he’d composed called La Eoin (“Eoin, your tiny Irish hand is frozen”.)

Even footage of Morgan’s extraordinary stance could not dissuade him from his adoration. And when you first see “Crouching Morgan Useful Cameo” in full slow-motion, it is an astonishing thing. He bends, then he bends some more, shakes his back leg like a man doing the Hokey Cokey with a jittery ferret in his trouser pocket, works the ball away for a quick single and repeats till the 50th over.

But Mr Hyperbole is in town at the moment and Nick’s not the only one getting carried away. I caught Simon Hughes in this month’s Cricketer comparing James Anderson to Dennis Lillee. Really? How so, Simon? Because, just like Dennis, he can swing and cut it both ways. That sounds like fun, can I play? I reckon Paul Collingwood is pretty much the new Curtly Ambrose, let me see, yes, Luke Wright is Jeff Thomson and Ravi Bopara is Michael Holding. Hooray! I win!

Someone wake me up when England are rubbish again.

Tim Nielsen was horrified to learn his sun-screen was a mere SPF 45 © Getty Images

Saturday, 20th August
Australian inflation is out of control. Don’t believe me? Today Tim Nielsen said he was 100,000% behind Australia being the best team in the world. We live in hard times, friends, and 100% or even 110% just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Or perhaps he was hoping to scare off his potential replacements with the sheer numerical magnitude of his platitude. Maybe Mickey Arthur is sitting at home shaking his head thinking, “Damn, I was good for 1000% but even I can’t get away with claiming 100,000%. Reckon I won’t bother applying after all.”

It won’t work, of course. Nielsen is toast. He is toast that has been in the toaster so long that it has set off the smoke alarm, and when it is finally popped out will be going straight into the bin with the potato peelings, the cold coffee grinds and yesterday’s Daily Telegraph. Still, he shouldn’t worry. With such a cavalier approach to numeracy, a career in the investment banking industry surely awaits.

Sunday, 21st August
A few weeks ago Shahid Afridi announced he was retiring from public life, adding that this was a conditional retirement, which we could have guessed, since all of his other retirements have been conditional (on his remembering why it was that he retired). In fact, his entire career has been conditional, a litany of ifs, maybes and what-might-have-beens-if-only-he-hadn’t-done-that.

And now, in the least surprising piece of sports news since we learned that MS Dhoni was “a bit disappointed” with the way his summer had gone, we learn that the man with the lovely hair is un-retiring. In response, the ICC has moved the level of Afridiness in world cricket from Shahid 5 up to Shahid 3, in anticipation of the return of the prodigal. And Professor Spectacles, Head of Afridi Studies at the Lahore Institute of Chaos, is very excited by this latest Afridi-related development.

“I have been mapping Shahid bhai’s public statements on this graph, where the x axis represents time and the y axis represents degree of craziness, and as you can see, if you join all the dots on the graph, it actually forms a reclining profile of Imran Khan’s face. This is a hugely significant development for Pakistan cricket, probably.”

Tuesday, 23rd August
While the England players nurse tender heads and try to remember where they left their keys, swear to themselves that they will never again mix vintage Bollinger with James Anderson’s aunty’s homemade gooseberry brandy, and attempt to piece together what happened last night from the photographs in the tabloids, a collection of the toughest, roughest men ever to wear silly sunglasses has assembled at a top-secret location. Their mission: Destroy England. And do some other stuff first.

I like the fact that South Africa are calling their pre-season get-together a camp. It puts you in mind of a spartan facility somewhere on the savannah with tin-roofed shacks, rudimentary showers and barbed-wire fences, seven miles from the nearest water hole and surrounded by man-eating lions, psychotic rhinoceroses and mean-spirited giraffes. In reality it is the Arabella Golf Estate near Cape Town, although I hear that some of the bunkers are pretty brutal.

And though there is some tiresome business involving Australia and Sri Lanka to get through first, Allan Donald, South Africa’s new verbal-abuse co-ordinator, has already made a start on next summer’s sledging (because it’s never too early to tell someone you’re going to knock their f*****g head off), by leaving rude and frankly sarcastic messages on the voicemail of each member of the England batting order, and Ravi Bopara (just in case). And to ram the message home, every South African player has been asked to tick “Don’t Like” on the “England Are Number One” Facebook page.*

*Under the EU Satirical Remarks Concerning Countries Of Origin Quota Agreement, I am not allowed at this point to make humorous reference to the birthplaces of certain members of a certain northern European cricket team being not entirely and in every respect without the borders of a populous republic situated towards the southern end of the African continent. So please feel free to attach your own. And don’t forget Jade Dernbach.

"... uh nothing, it's just that I have two tickets to Avril Lavigne, and I was wondering..." © Getty Images

Wednesday, 17th August
The Champions League will soon be with us. But this year the ECB (motto: “Show Me The Money”) are not going to let any counties play in it unless they are paid before the tournament. Quite right. You should always get the money upfront, then if something goes wrong, and you don’t actually turn up or, to take a hypothetical example, the person paying you turns out to be an international fraudster, you can always hide it under your mattress and deny everything.

Thursday, 18th August
While watching Sreesanth pretend that he wanted to throw the ball at KP today, it occurred to me that this is one of modern cricket’s odder rituals. Why would you pretend to do something that you almost certainly aren’t going to do, that even if you did wouldn’t achieve any purpose, and for which you’d have to apologise immediately?

If the intention is to frighten the batsmen, there are surely better ways. You could for instance, tell him that you’re in love with him and that you want to stop the madness for a moment so you can share a hug. You could bring out a microphone and invite him to say a few words. You could warn him about the tarantula on his shoulder.

But threatening to throw a ball at a man kitted out like a particularly safety-conscious samurai warrior seems a rather futile pursuit. You know you probably won’t, and he knows you know you probably won’t, and we all know that he knows that you know that you probably won’t, so knock it off, get back to your mark and bowl.

Friday, 19th August
Introspection is the fashion in Antipodean circles right now. Since the last Ashes, Australian cricket has locked itself in the bedroom with the curtains closed listening to the Smiths and now the Big Australian Review of Everything (subtitled “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”) has finally been published. It’s a masterpiece of self-flagellation, as brutal an exercise in cricket masochism as RP Singh agreeing to cut short his holiday in Miami to chase a ball around south London for two days.

The Review is a 40-page cry for help, a long list of all the things that Australians think they aren’t very good at. Here’s a brief extract:

“…batting for long periods, batting against the moving ball, batting against spin, batting technique, overall fielding, catching, fitness, bowling to a plan, building pressure, spin bowling, swing bowling, reverse-swing bowling, gum-chewing, palm-spitting, we’ve got really stupid hair, no one loves us and frankly we don’t deserve to be happy anyway...”

The solution to all this angst? “Adult conversations” and “360 degree feedback”. Captain Clarke will be expected to go around the dressing room asking his blokes to pull their f*****g socks up, and they in turn will be encouraged to respond in forthright fashion, along the lines of telling him to stuff his f*****g feedback where the f*****g sun don’t shine. And then everything will be all right again.

Which one is the human and which is the machine? © Getty Images

Tuesday, 9th August
It seems that Kamran Akmal is being shunted out of the Pakistan team, an incredibly short-sighted move that can only have been taken by the kind of narrow-minded person who obsesses over trivial details like runs and catches. Yes he’s dropped a clanger or seven over the years but he was never dull, and he had an astonishingly brutal cover drive. Like Hot Spot, he doesn’t always function as intended but cricket is less entertaining without him.

Thursday, 11th August
Xavier Doherty has packed a decade and a half’s worth of disillusionment into eight months. A sudden and unexpected promotion, a short but eventful Test career and already he’s concentrating on one-day cricket. In six months time he’ll be restricting himself to Twenty20, applying to go on Masterchef Australia and accepting an invitation to join the crack commentary firm of Heals, Tubs and Slats Ltd.

Being an Australian spinner must be like auditioning for one of those reality talent shows. You rehearse for months, you get a telephone call out of the blue, and then when you’re on the stage, you’ve only got 30 seconds to do your thing. One bum note or unintentional long hop, the buzzers sound and off you go. Bye bye, Xavier, you’re not quite right for us. Come back and try again next year.

He has today humbly suggested that perhaps Australian spinners need to be given longer than say, a couple of sessions, to prove themselves in the national team. Shane Warne took four wickets and averaged 96 in his first four Tests. Would Hilditch, Chappell and chums have given him a fifth?

Friday, 12th August
So England grind on with the relentless efficiency of an automatic coffee-grinding machine set to “relentless”. Strauss and Co are now a byword for ruthlessness and the inspiration for the new film Terminator 5: The Rise Up The Rankings in which a team of deadly androids with sensible hair cuts travel back in time to destroy the careers of leading Indian cricketers by making them look silly.

Now I’m not saying that the England cricketers are soulless killing machines without consciences. But they are freakishly tall. And they often wear sunglasses. All summer long they have been bulldozing through the picturesque and hitherto undisturbed valley of India’s reputation like a gang of construction workers without planning permission building a six-lane motorway.

And now with only seven, or more likely five, or possibly even four days left in this series, India’s chances of being able to go home without having to wear disguises depends on three unlikely eventualities:

1. Rahul Dravid not getting out again

2. Conveniently timed precipitation of Biblical proportions

3. English overconfidence on the brink of victory, of the kind that once enabled the tortoise to win an unlikely 10,000-metre gold medal at the 1904 Olympics.

This last hope is a particularly forlorn one. The English hare has been working with a leaping endurance coach and is on a high-energy carrot-based diet. Having hit the ground running, he’s determined to push on to the line and indeed beyond it, and there appears to be very little chance of him ducking behind a tree for forty winks any time soon.

Wake up Ravi Shastri, there’s a new screamer in town © Andy Zaltzman

Saturday, 23rd July
Steve Waugh says that 56 players have come forward to report approaches by bookmakers in the last year, compared with five for the previous year.

“That suggest the players have confidence in the system and confidence it will work.”

Absolutely. Or it might suggest that what happened to Salman Butt and chums has put the wind up every player in the game and they’re not leaving anything to chance. But let’s not be uncharitable. The important thing is that they are coming forward.

Haroon Lorgat agrees. But he didn’t get to be where he is today without finding something trivial to disagree about. He doesn’t know where Steve has got the figure of 56 players from. So what’s the real figure, Haroon?

"There's one individual in the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit that maintains such records and he does not even know the figure himself, simply because he had not compiled it.”

Hang on. If you don’t know what the figure is, how do you know it isn’t 56? And more to the point, why don’t you know the figure? What kind of spreadsheets are you using at ICC Towers? Is your chap in the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit not trained to use a calculator?

So until Haroon sorts it out, let’s all join in and play ICC Corruption Bingo. Steve’s already bagged 56, so I’m going to go for 42. Pick a number, and if you guess right, you’ll win a leather jacket, a brown envelope and the phone number of a good lawyer.

Monday, 25th July
Something terrible has happened to Test Match Special. I’d heard it was poorly, but dear me, I wasn’t quite expecting this. Jonathan Agnew has gone all grumpy; Geoffrey Boycott’s monologues sound like a recording of Churchill’s speeches played too slowly through a dodgy speaker: you know that what he’s saying is quite important but it still makes you want to chew your own ears off; and Phil Tufnell appears to have only the vaguest idea what is going on at any given moment.

And then there’s Michael Vaughan. Listening to him is like having an audio feed from the England dressing room. He has two modes of broadcasting. He’s either telling you what he did at the weekend or he’s giving you his England team talk, in which the phrase “the boys” appears distressingly often. The nadir of his contribution was when Tendulkar was dismissed and he screamed “Yeeeessssss!” into the microphone so loud I could swear I felt his spittle in my ear.

Tuesday, 26th July
There are many approaches to picking a cricket team. Here in Blighty, due to European Union Human Rights Regulations, the paperwork involved in dropping anyone from the England team is so onerous*, it is easier to just cut and paste the same XI from the game before. Indeed, the only chance a player has of breaking into the team is if one of the incumbents retires, resigns or has an affair with the prime minister.

But they do things differently in Australia, where Andrew Hilditch is known to favour the Lucky Dip approach. Before each series, he reaches into his Bag Of Unlikely Candidates and pulls out something unexpected. This time it’s another new spinner, Nathan Lyon. I’ve never heard of him, and to be honest, there’s probably only a 50-50 chance that Digger has heard of him either, but then that’s the thrill of the Lucky Dip!

* For example, I believe the Deselection Trauma Counselling Referral form (known as the “Hick 1A”) runs to 17 pages and has to be countersigned by the chairman of selectors, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the player’s mother.

"It's not illegal in any nation to check heart-rate, blood pressure, blood volume and rate of perspiration. So it cannot be illegal to take polygraph tests. Hence proved" © AFP

Wednesday, 20th July
On the eve of the 1999th/2000th Test match*, MS Dhoni believes that the five-day flavour of cricket is still appetising. And why? Because, despite the worldwide epidemic of empty stadia, lots of people are still “following” Test cricket.

I don’t blame MS. He’s not going to run down Test cricket just before playing Test cricket. He’s not Chris Gayle, after all. But this word “following” is an odd one. Some English hacks brandish it like a shield when people point out that virtually no one watches the County Championship. “Aha!” they say, “Maybe no one watches it but lots of people follow it and that’s more or less the same thing.”

But is it? Does it really count as support if your only commitment is to occasionally check the score whilst idly surfing the web? If Test cricket is relying on thousands of invisible supporters to demonstrate its popularity, then it really is in trouble.

And if a Test match happens but no one’s there to see it, does it really exist?

Thursday, 21st July
Lie-detectors are quite the thing at the moment. For some reason certain sections of cricketdom believe that wiring players up and asking them questions is the best way to root out corruption. This is despite the fact that in the legal systems of most of the world’s cricket nations, lie-detector test results are no more admissible than coin-tossing or entrail-reading.

The polygraph pushers appear to have stumbled into a logical fallacy:

1. We need to do something about corruption
2. This is something
3. Therefore we need to do this

But am I being unfair? After all Andrew Strauss is an intelligent man and he’s all in favour of it. Here’s his endorsement:

“I don’t know exactly how lie-detectors work and how accurate they are, but I like the idea of it.”

Hmm.

Strauss also said that if a player had nothing to hide, why wouldn’t he submit to a polygraph test? Why indeed. They probably used to say the same thing in medieval Europe to defend the practice of dunking suspected witches in the nearest river.

And maybe that’s the way we should go. A corrupt cricketer is almost certainly lighter than a normal cricketer because he is missing his conscience. So if you throw a player into the Thames and he floats, he’s clearly guilty. If he drowns, he was probably innocent. And there are additional benefits to the ICC because whereas polygraphs can be expensive, pushing a cricketer into a river costs very little.

Friday, 22nd July
Fear not, Australia, Mr Argus’s Big Review Of Everything is due soon. Messrs Taylor, Border and Waugh have been travelling the country asking questions. They’ve talked to players, coaches, chairmen, shoppers, tramps in doorways, a representative cross section of the koala community and the occasional dingo. The questions were wide-ranging but profound. Why did we lose to England? Why aren’t our players better? What’s the point of it all? Where are we going for lunch?

Whatever the findings, you can be sure that Cricket Australia will act upon them without delay (unless of course, the review were to make totally irresponsible recommendations such as, for example, prioritising Test cricket over Twenty20, changing the coaching set-up or getting rid of any of the selectors).

* Depending on whether the Australia v ICC All-Star Charity Six-Day Testimonial in 2005 counts as a Test. Or more pertinently, whether you care.

”Yay, there’s two of us in this photograph and I’m the only one who’s long and lissome and clenching his fists in this toffee-nosed Enid Blyton way. Yay!” © Getty Images

Saturday, 16th July
Sri Lanka’s new interim coach has warned his players to be wary of Australia.

“They will be like a wounded tiger after losing the Ashes and the World Cup and they will be hungry.”

A wounded tiger? Really? I don’t blame Rumesh for trying to whip up a bit of pre-series hype, but I fear those Sri Lankans who do turn up expecting a wounded tiger are going to be a bit disappointed when they find themselves watching an asthmatic possum with a dodgy hip.

Sunday, 17th July
The ICC is toying with the idea of a timeless Test to settle the Test Championship in 2013. I’m all for taking Test cricket back to its roots, but I’m not sure they’ve really thought this one through. Let me spell out for you the potential horror of the situation.

This Championship-deciding Test match could conceivably involve England. England means Cook and Trott. On a Lord’s featherbed. For days on end. And that, my friends, is clearly a violation of the UN Convention on Human Rights.

Monday, 18th July
There’s a spot of bother at Team England HQ and it’s all to do with English cricket’s favourite blond. Apart from holding the world record for teapotting and being handy with a scowl, just what exactly is Stuart’s role?

“We want him to be the enforcer in our team. There is no better bowler in the world than Stuart at bowling bouncers.”

David Saker, England’s bowling facilitator, spells it out for us. Apart from the fact that the baby-faced Broad is only slightly more intimidating than James Anderson, which is to say, not very intimidating at all, that does at least make it clear why the lanky tantrum-thrower is in the team. But hang on a minute.

“I’ve heard some crazy stuff about him being an enforcer. His job is not to rough up the opposition. It is not to be this ridiculous enforcer.”

So says Andy Flower. Now I don’t know what to think. Next time Stuart fires it ineffectively down the leg side, do we assume it’s an enforcement wide to rough up the fine-leg fielder, or a putting-it-on-a-nagging-length kind of wide?

And when you add his neither-one-thing-nor-the-other-bowling to his occasionally effective but often disappointing batting, it seems that Broad is in danger of becoming the classiest bits-and-pieces player in English cricket. Never mind the new Ian Botham, at the moment he’s the new Mark Ealham.

Tuesday, 19th July
What is it with Steve Waugh and lie detectors? He’s been banging on about them again today. Was he a big Jerry Springer fan? Or is he just taking his theory of mental disintegration to the next level? This time he went to the trouble of getting himself all wired up. He knows he isn’t corrupt, you see, so just by passing the test he proved that it works. Unless he was lying, of course.

Anyway, polygraphs are so dull. There must be other unscientific methods of rooting out corruption that are a bit edgier. How about graphology? I bet dodgy cricketers have really shifty-looking vowels. Maybe we could scrutinise tea leaves. I happen to know, for example, that after questioning by police, the dregs in Salman Butt’s mug apparently formed themselves into a perfect $ sign. And of course, there’s always astrology: “With the moon in Venus at the moment, Pisceans will be particularly susceptible to accepting brown envelopes from strangers in hotel bars.”

"When I'm president of the PCB, nobody will be allowed to criticise Shahid Afridi" © AFP

Sunday, 10th July
One series in and Duncan is already hitting his grumpy straps. After the Dominica Test, he came to the media party, stepped up to the plate, picked up the plate and helped himself to a steaming portion of grumble pie. Old chubby cheeks was in the firing line because his new team had offended a certain section of Indian fandom by settling for a draw. Having explained to the gentlemen of the press that he thought it was the right thing to do, he was most put out to have to repeat himself and it kind of went downhill from there. Good to see that Fletch hasn’t lost his PR touch.

But was a draw so bad? The blessed Australians are often invoked at such times, but I don’t recall AB’s team risking a series win with a brave run-chase. We would all like cricket to be played in the spirit of the Golden Age, by characters out to entertain, for whom cricket is a pleasant diversion from more serious pursuits like fox-hunting, gambling and partying. But we are in the era of the drab professional and results are everything. Those are the rules. It’s not Duncan’s fault.

Monday, 11th July
Shahid Afridi is unhappy and is promising to unmask the people who are running a smear campaign against him. This is a touch melodramatic. And superfluous. When the smearing is carried out in an interview with a major newspaper, unmasking is not required. Even if the smearer had been wearing a Batman mask, and had given his name as Jazzy B Hutt, we would still have known who was behind it.

And besides the odd smear, as you might expect, Mr Butt’s interview had its share of crimes against logic. For example, the man who appointed Afridi as captain (for it was he) apparently thinks Afridi isn’t captaincy material. And then there was this:

“In my opinion, which may be considered by some people wrong,* he is responsible for losses in the fourth and fifth one-day internationals.”

Really? He may not have had the best of games in Guyana and Barbados, but he was ably assisted by at least ten other suspects, all of whom should have been in the frame for the blame. And oh yes, he won the series. Not to mention reaching the World Cup semi-final. Clearly the man was a failure. Let us hope that when Shahid becomes Chairman of the PCB in around 2031, he too has learned the art of logic abuse.

Tuesday, 12th July
Mitchell Johnson doesn’t want anything to do with the BBL. My first reaction to this news was to ask my computer what the Brett Geeves was the BBL? The Big Brother Love-in? The Baked Bean Luge? The Board of Banal Linguistics? Then I remembered. Of course! It’s the Big Bash League, Australia’s answer to the question, “Is there anything we can do to make the world a more irritating place.”

That Johnson has decided to spend time learning how to hold a cricket ball rather than perform for the Perth Ponderers is refreshing, but it isn’t really news. The news is that, apparently, Cricket Australia is encouraging its players to take part in this superfluous franchised-up PR stunt. And why? Because if the top Aussie pros join in, it will help ensure the success of the competition. Clearly the financial viability of the Big Banana League is priority number one for the administrators of the world’s fifth-ranked Test nation.

* Perish the thought, sir

"Look Stu, you can't complain to the umpire about the ugliness of Dilshan's facial hair " © PA Photos

Sunday, 3rd July
Tillakaratne says he’s disappointed at how his chaps went about pulverising England at Lord’s. Absolutely right. Poor show Mr Mathews, you made Cook and chums look awfully silly.

On the other hand, it was quite funny. And it did bring a little pulse quickening to the closing overs of a one-sided encounter. You could hardly blame Chandimal and Mathews. They are entertainers. If England weren’t going to put a fight, they had to do something to give the spectators their money’s worth.

And I don’t know what England’s problem was. That Sri Lanka could have won in 44 overs but instead they won in 49? Really, they had nothing to complain about, but that didn’t stop them. Led by Peter Pietersen the Petulant Pouter, they managed to extract maximum sulkage from the situation. Their expressions at the end of the game were so sour they could have curdled milk.

How has this happened? Losing with dignity used to be the only thing England were any good at. Now they’re rapidly climbing the ICC Whining Rankings. And their most exciting young complainer is Stuart “It’s Not Fair” Broad, the man with the fastest whinge reflex in the modern game. Has losing half of his match fee at Headingley caused him to reflect? Nope.

“I’m certainly not going to lose my passion for the game…”

No one is asking you to lose your passion for the game, Stuart. Just stop swearing at umpires. And fielders. And pigeons.

Monday, 4th July
Like an empty stomach the Katich Controversy rumbles on, but not everyone thinks that the decision to axe Australia’s most reliable batsman was a catastrophically short-sighted one. Coach Tim Neilsen isn’t party to the mystical goings on in selection land, but he fronted up today and said that he thinks the Katichlessness of the list of contracted players is probably a sign that the team is being regenerated.

Probably.

Of course, there are alternative explanations for his absence, all of them, in my opinion, just as plausible as the regeneration hypothesis:

1. The 17-year-old intern charged with filling in the Central Contract Software Wizard sneezed and accidentally deleted Katich’s name. He couldn’t get hold of anyone in IT so he just went with it.

2. Hilditch and Chappell have never really been happy with their spelling of “Katich” and so avoided the whole tricky business by going for Fil Huges instead.

3. The selectors wrote down the names of every vaguely talented Australian player they could think of on scraps of paper torn from a copy of Steve Waugh’s autobiography, put them all into Skippy the Magic Bush Hat, gave it a shake, chanted the magic words, (“Bowling Shane”) and awarded contracts to the first 25 names out of the hat.

4. They don’t like his crispy salmon. Who the hell wants their salmon crispy anyway? And his salads are just well, a little bit too tomatoey, you know?

Tuesday, 5th July
Good news for those of you living in the Caribbean. Things must be going pretty well domestically, because apparently your prime ministers are able to take time away from managing the economy, public services, transport and crime in order to tackle some of the region’s more trivial problems. And top of the agenda is the row between some incompetent suit wearers and Jamaica’s millionaire sulking champion.

After sorting out the Gayle squabble, I believe they will be tackling other important issues such as why do dogs eat grass, why can we never find our car keys and why are chocolate bars are a lot smaller than they used to be.

”If we give them this, what next – inspectors in the dressing-room showers to monitor our soap use? Rules about how many M&Ms we can eat per hour? It’s the end of civilisation” © AP

Saturday, 11th June
This summer there will be no T-shaped gesturing, no slow handclapping from the crowd and no sheepish-looking umpires changing their minds. Though the rest of the cricket world has gone DRS crazy, India continue to oppose it with Trott-like stubbornness, for reasons that are not entirely clear. It remains one of the sport’s enduring mysteries, like why professional sportsmen can’t play on wet grass, and how exactly a game of cricket is enhanced by having young women dancing near to it.

We know that Dhoni and Tendulkar regard the DRS with the same suspicion with which a family cat might greet the introduction of an automatic cat-food dispenser. Personally, I agree with them. I like the old-school thrill of middle-aged men in silly hats making snap decisions. Since in any given match, I don’t much mind who wins, to me, umpiring booboos are just a wobbly thread in cricket’s tapestry.

But if accuracy is your thing, then DRS works. And this summer we need it more than ever. Last time India toured these shores, there was plenty of tasty cricket, but we were also served several helpings of silliness, a side order of stupidity, and a light sprinkling of jelly beans. Any series featuring Sreesanth, Harbhajan, Prior and Broad is likely to have a touch of the school playground about it, and without DRS, we can expect toys to be ejected from prams with monotonous regularity.

Monday 13th June
At a time when Asian cricket boards are being encouraged to extricate themselves from the clammy embrace of the political class, the Australian defence minister has struck a blow for his kind. He has condemned the decision to deprive Simon Katich of his central contract as an atrocity. And he’s right. Chalk one up to the politicians.

“Simon has been a fantastic player, but we felt it was right to start blooding our next opening partnership in preparation for the Ashes.”

So says Andrew Hilditch. “Next opening partnership” is an impressive phase, implying that the Aussie talent factory has turned out yet another batch of world-class top-order batsmen, and that crusty old Kat has been swept aside by progress. It is slightly less impressive when you discover that what it means in practice is a recall for Phil “Step Back And Swipe” Hughes, the world’s leading bouncer magnet.

But the problem goes beyond Hilditch and Co. Cricket Australia is clearly suffering from Sick Organisation Syndrome, the symptoms of which are an outbreak of verbal diarrhoea and a rash of fake business-style job titles. Titles such as “Head of Cricket Operations”. Surely this should be Michael Clarke? Apparently not. Presumably he is only “Head of (Onfield) Cricket Operations”.

Anyway, this is how the Head of Cricket Operations described their selection set-up.

“You’ve got to have the best people, the best structures, the best position description for them…”

Well, if you like. Or you could just get a bunch of former pros together every so often and ask them to write down a list of the best dozen Test players in the country. A list that includes Simon Katich.

Brett Lee: the world's blondest man and pop sensation most likely not to win a Grammy © Getty Images

Wednesday, 25th May
Andrew Strauss answering a question reminds me of a cow processing grass. He sits there gazing listlessly into the middle distance, the words go round and round in his mouth and the end result appears to be at least partly methane-based. He has mastered the politician’s art of talking purposefully without saying anything at all. Here he is on corruption:

“My gut feeling is there is more to it than we know about.”

Immediately the listener is concerned. This feeling in your bowels, Andrew, is it a tingly kind of feeling or something more urgent? Should the ICC anti-corruption unit be hooked up to your intestinal early warning system? Could more roughage in your diet be the answer?

“It is hard for me to comment because I don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors.”

Ah, I see. He believes that some of his fellow professionals are corrupt, but he hasn’t got any evidence, beyond an enigmatic rumbling deep in the Strauss innards. It’s hard to know what to suggest: greater resources for the ACU or a couple of indigestion pills at bedtime.

Thursday, 26th May
Over at Big Bash HQ, the big crazy ideas machine is operating around the clock and those edgy zeitgeisty concepts continue to pour forth. One fielder outside the circle! Super overs! Pinch-hitting 12th men! Spectators keeping any balls they catch! Yes this is exactly what the game needs; time to shake up a sport that has remained stuck in the past (2007) for far too long.

But I still think we can do better. Let’s really blue-sky the thing, push the envelope and shift that paradigm. Instead of one fielder outside the circle, how about no fielders on the field at all? Instead of a super over, why not make every over a treble super deluxe dance Powerplay! Let’s have continually rotating teams of 37 a side! Let’s auction the Man of the Match’s house to the highest bidder!

In fact let’s hire a big tent, get Mark Nicholas to compere it and import a couple of elephants. We could call it the Big Bash Big Fun Big Family Cricket Themed Circus. Roll up, roll up everyone! See Brett Lee, the World’s Blondest Man! Gasp at Keiron Pollard and his One Big Shot! Thrill at the spectacle of David Warner the Mighty Midget being fired through the air from a cannon to land safely on a pile of dollars!

Friday, 27th May
The ECB are going to review county cricket’s business plan. This came as something of a surprise because I didn’t realise county cricket had a business plan. It does rather seem a generous way of describing what goes on in the shires. As I understand it, county cricket’s business plan goes like this:

1. Receive large amount of money from ECB
2. Spend said money on washed-up South Africans, hideous pavilions and top-of- the-range soap dispensers for the executive washroom.
3. Wait for more money from the ECB

Of course the ECB have some experience in this area. It wasn’t so long ago that they developed their own innovative business plan:

1. Obtain large amounts of money from reputable Texan banker
2. Spend said money on a 20-foot bronze likeness of Giles Clarke and twice-monthly goodwill visits in support of the Tahitian Cricket Association.
3. Refuse to give the money back when it turns out that it didn’t really belong to the Texan banker on the grounds that you’ve already spent it and anyway, finders keepers.

With that kind of financial foresight behind them, county cricket will soon be back on its feet. Or bankrupt.

Craig Kieswetter, distracted by the crease on his trousers, is yet to realise he has been bowled © Getty Images

Wednesday, 18th May
Australia are expanding their Twenty20 tournament. They have ticked all the right boxes. No evidence that Australians want more Twenty20. Check. Watered down imitation of the IPL. Check. Silly team names. Check. But wait, isn’t there a danger that they have missed the boat on all this? Aren’t new Twenty20 leagues so 2008? Head zombie Mike McKenna doesn’t think so.

“There are a lot of people still feeling the game out, what’s the right way to play it, where to play games, what’s the right number of teams.”

A sentence like that really deserves a closer reading.

“There are a lot of people still feeling the game out.”

Are there? There may be a couple of yak herders in Mongolia who have never heard of the Dilscoop, but that’s probably about it.

“What’s the right way to play it?”

Score as many runs as you can as quickly as possible?

“Where to play the games?”

On cricket pitches, preferably near where lots of people live.

“What’s the right number of teams?”

In my experience, a useful rule of thumb is that the right number of teams is about 25% less than the number of teams who actually take part.

But I’m being unfair. This stuff isn’t for you or me. It’s comfort talk, soothing words for the benefit of the speaker; the PR equivalent of sitting on your sofa eating from a tub of ice cream because you think your boyfriend is about to leave you. He might just as well have said this:

“Oh my god! We’re really really worried that the Big Silly Bash is going to be a big fat flop but if we keep talking, maybe it’ll be okay, yes, I’m sure it’s going to be fine. Look, the sun’s coming out over there. Everything’s going to be all right. It really is.”

Thursday, 19th May
The great thing about Twitter is that there really is no limit to the ways in which professional sportsmen can use it to get themselves into trouble. Today it was Craig Kieswetter’s turn to invite Mr Stupidity round for tea and biscuits. He posted a photograph taken through the windscreen of his moving car. Oh dear. Fortunately, it was a false alarm, the photo was taken by a passenger and not by our hero.

But the key question is not who took the photo, but what was on the motorway that was so fascinating Craig felt the need to share it with the world? An elephant on a skateboard? A life-size version of the Eiffel Tower made entirely from marzipan? Elvis overtaking in the outside lane? And it raises serious doubts about his Test credentials. If he is so easily distracted that he finds motorways diverting, can he really be trusted to stand still for a day and a half?

Friday, 20th May
The debate has raged all week and now a nation holds its breath as the panel of judges prepare to give their verdicts. Who will be the winner in the talent contest to end them all? Who will earn themselves the coveted title of England’s sixth best batsman? Will it be Cheeky Anglo-Irishman Eoin “Reverse-Sweep” Morgan or Swaggering Essex Boy Ravi “Not Really A No. 3” Bopara? Vote now!

Having grown bored of churning out those traditional early season articles about how the County Championship is really a vibrant and popular competition and then having understandably grown bored of writing about the County Championship, English cricket hacks have moved on to the familiar third item on the summer’s agenda: the desperate hyping of a minor national selection issue into a major event.

And we all know it’s going to be Ravi anyway. The argument goes like this: Eoin has been in India, so is totally unprepared for Test cricket, as demonstrated by the 156 he scored against Sri Lanka this week. Ravi, on the other hand, put country first by choosing not to play in the IPL after none of the franchises bid for him. So Ravi will be going to Cardiff and Eoin will be flying back to Kolkata in the emergency vehicle known as the Keiron Kopter, originally built to carry Trinidad’s second-best allrounder to any Twenty20 league in the world at a moment’s notice.

"... the spinners will go to Sri Lanka, the quicks to South Africa and the rest to the Champions League" © Getty Images

Tuesday, May 10th
The plot has thickened in Rajasthan. Someone or something, though more likely someone, told the chaps in electric blue that they had to play on pitch A and not pitch B. Just a few short hours later, they lost to Chennai. Coincidence? Probably. Chennai are better. But Warney reckons strange things are afoot. The BCCI say no team can choose which pitch to play on. Who’s telling the truth? Who knows? Who cares?

Let’s be honest, the great Jaipur pitch switch is a bit disappointing; the Delhi Daredevils of conspiracy theories. But it is a cunning way of explaining a Rajasthan thrashing. Warne is the cat burglar of excuses, pretending to be at a society party, whilst all the time Twittering his way over silent rooftops, slipping quietly through a window and leaving a card marked “The Blame” on the Jaipur groundsman’s pillow.

Wednesday, May 11th
Mr Ijaz Butt has spoken. In an interview with the Complacent Administration Monthly he announced that he had succeeded in eradicating “Player Power” - an undesirable state of affairs in which players have too much influence in Pakistan cricket, and has instituted “Butt Power” - an altogether more satisfactory arrangement in which a benevolent, grey-haired leader rules over the sport forever.

He also revealed that the PCB are planning to cash in on the sudden popularity of a small area of northern Pakistan. The Abottobad Premier League will feature franchises made up of locals, sightseers and journalists. Keiron Pollard has already signed up to play for two of the teams.

Thursday, May 12th
In unsurprising news today, Pope Benedict XVI made a statement confirming that he was still a strong adherent of the Catholic faith; the Forestry Commission announced the complete success of their campaign to encourage bear defecation in deciduous woodland; the earth was noted to have rotated once on its axis and Kevin Pietersen lost his wicket to a left-arm spinner.

Friday, May 13th
After research commissioned by Cricket Australia revealed that South Africa is not the same as Sri Lanka, Greg Chappell has announced a radical new selection policy. This year the selectors will be picking different squads for different tours, according to the prevailing conditions. Personally I think they’ve gone for the right option.

Those other options in full:

1. Pick the same squad for both tours regardless (“The Hilditch Option”)
2. Pick different squads for different tours but get them the wrong way round
3. Fail to pick a squad for either tour.

Kochi: A Gatorade commerical in 3D © AFP

Wednesday, 13th April
I’ll be honest. I’m fast falling out of love with Kochi. First there was that business with the shirts. I mean, orange? Really? They said nothing about orange when they bought the franchise. Perhaps that was what all the squabbling was about. But there was no clue on the logo. I was expecting a regal purple outfit, with cool embroidered silver tusks. What did we get? Bilious tangerine. They look like fast-food servers on their lunch break, or street marketers promoting a new brand of orange juice.

And then there’s the not-being-very-good problem. This is a real hindrance to the committed supporter, particularly those of us who got carried away pre-IPL and had a little wager on the orangey ones to win the thing. We are in a for a rollercoaster ride, of the kind you get at illegal fun fairs, where the track isn’t quite finished and it all ends in disaster. Today, for example, when Yuvraj fell, I was leaping up and down like Javed Miandad on a trampoline doing his Kiran More impersonation. But a few balls later, I found myself committing an act of violence upon an innocent cushion as Jadeja completed his spell with one of those innovative “hit me” full-tosses.

Perhaps it’s the shirts, perhaps it’s the name, perhaps it’s presence of Sreesanth, but I am afraid there is no other word for it: Kochi are flaky. In fact, they are the new Kings XI Punjab. Yes, it’s as bad as that.

Thursday, 14th April
We’ve all been there. You’ve finished washing your baby. But there’s a problem. The bath is full of both baby and water. What to do? Do you carefully extract your baby then tip away the water? Or do you throw the whole lot out of the window? Well, kudos to the WICB. In dropping Gayle, Sarwan and Chanderpaul, they have shown us that there is a third way: lose the baby and keep the bath water. And if anyone carps, you answer them by saying that the door is not closed to the baby, he can always make a comeback, but it’s time we had a look at what the bath water can do.

Friday, 15th April
Exciting news for the nation of New Zealand with the arrival of Australian philosopher and motivational spreadsheet guru, John Buchanan. Professor B enjoyed great success across the Tasman Sea with his innovative five-point strategy:

1. Pick Warne
2. Pick Gilchrist
3. Break for tea and scones
4. Pick McGrath
5. Leave inspirational Post-it notes at the bottom of players’ cereal bowls

“I’ve learnt a lot from my time in Australia,” said the man himself, “Specifically, that Post-its can go a bit soggy if you pour milk onto them. So my first step as Emperor of New Zealand Cricket will be to scour Ebay for a decent Post-it note laminator.”

And the man they call John enthralled a snoozing press corps by outlining his belief in the transformative power of talking at length without really saying anything.

“Philosophy has a lot to offer our sport. I think it was Socrates who said that a small kiwi can down a kangaroo if it knows how to use a gun. Or it may have been Aristotle. Now I come to think of it, it could have been Groucho Marx. Anyway, my aim is to intellectualise the New Zealand cricket collective with a series of lectures on the Impossibility of Existence, a visit to Michel Foucault’s favourite hardware store and compulsory Esperanto lessons for anyone with a central contract.

“After that, it will be a simple matter of identifying three players exactly like Warne, Gilchrist and McGrath and the renaissance of New Zealand cricket can begin.”

Saturday, 15th April
Yesterday Kochi beat Mumbai. This might suggest that they are quite good. But I'm not fooled. I've been here before with Kings XI. One day they're thrashing Tendulkar, the next they're all out for 57. It's the essence of flakiness. Don't get sucked in, people, they'll let you down when it matters.

Phil Hughes: soon in an adaptation of Jesus Christ Superstar © Getty Images

Friday, 18th March
Despite Old Mother Hilditch’s protestations to the contrary, it does appear that the Australian cricket cupboard is, to put it diplomatically, some way distant from being in a state of fullness. During the glory years, if you wanted the selectors to know who you were, an average of 60 was de rigueur. But these days it seems a couple of cheeky 30s is all you need to get your name into the selection tombola to win a baggy green.

In another era Phil Hughes and his extraordinary limbo-dancing, backward-shuffling, fly-fishing style might have been a backwoods curiosity, a minor provincial spectacle, an offbeat conversation piece on the side table of domestic cricket. But this is 2011 and Phil Hughes is not an eyebrow-raisingly unready rookie; he is the messiah. And judging by Mr Hilditch’s comments today, we can soon expect the third coming.

Admittedly the first and second comings didn’t really work out. But the Australian selectors have a useful little saying: “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably the beginning of a long and successful Test career.” So the fact that Phil Hughes has now scored some runs in a state game pretty much guarantees that he’ll be seen all at sea again in a Test match near you, soon.

Sunday, 20th March
Sadly the Kenyan team are flying home without winning a match. Despite a fantastic new logo, heavy monetary investment (a games console and a copy of Steve Tikolo’s Knocked Out Cricket) and some of the finest sunglasses you’ll ever see on a cricket field, they did not live up to expectations.

“Yes they failed,” explained a senior cricket official, “But we feel that their failure represents a real failure. We had hoped for a slightly disappointing failure. Instead it was a very disappointing failure. This level of failure is, quite frankly, disappointing.”

Cricket Kenya have already conducted a thorough review and have identified the three key factors responsible for this not entirely unprecedented lack of success:

1. Batting: Not very good
2. Bowling: A bit rubbish, really
3. Fielding: Needs work

Conclusion: Disappointing.

Monday, 21st March
Good news for Darren Sammy and chums but bad news for the vehicle glaziers of Dhaka. The Bangladeshi government have promised the men from the Caribbean top-level security ahead of their defeat to Pakistan. For a start, all the residents of Mirpur will have to don blindfolds as the coach passes, the thinking being that if they can’t see it, their chances of hitting it with a projectile will be significantly reduced.

And in an unprecedented effort, thousands of policemen have been busy confiscating every single stone, rock, boulder, pebble and boiled sweet in the Mirpur district. Keen stone-throwers will still be able to obtain their missiles, but only from approved flinging-supplies shops. These retailers will only be licensed to sell rocks made of foam and fitted with a Donald Duck squeaker so that the West Indies players will be entertained as they are bombarded on their way out of the ground.

“We are taking this very seriously,” chuckled a Bangladeshi government spokesman. “In fact, you could say that no stone has been left unturned.”*

* I understand that the official in question has since been sacked, for violating the “excruciating wordplay” clause in his contract. Firm, but fair, I think you’ll agree.

"It was found that there was a shadow of another protector fell on the TV set a second before Ricky's own landed on it © Getty Images

Wednesday, 23rd February
Little Ricky’s note apologising for accidentally breaking a television with his groin protector is a classic of the genre. It will no doubt be filed in the same ICC shoebox as Michael Atherton’s handwritten letter explaining that he had soil about his person because he was trying to grow pocket potatoes and Ijaz Butt’s email insisting that he did have some really top quality proof that the England players were involved in match-fixing but unfortunately his dog ate it.

When it comes to the curious incident of the bouncing groin protector in the dressing room, I confess I’m a sceptic. I’ve tried reconstructing it like Jim Garrison investigating the death of JFK, but the physics of the thing just don’t add up. One groin protector flung into a kit bag could surely not have gained the velocity needed to break a television. Ricky Harvey Oswald was just a patsy. There must have been other groin protector flingers involved to topple a TV. We’ll probably never know.

But the absurdity of this situation is not in Ricky’s schoolboy-esque excuse but in the fact that he had to apologise at all. He was apparently in breach of the new Fixtures and Fittings Integrity Regulations. The ICC, having given up on trying to properly organise tournaments or tackle corruption have decided to crack down hard on the serious problems, such as the scourge of slightly damaged electronic equipment and lightly dented advertising hoardings that threaten to undermine our sport.

But these are entertainers, performing under pressure. Would the Rolling Stones have apologised for scuffing a television screen? If the ICC are that concerned about the state of dressing-room furniture, then why not provide the players with pretend items they can vandalise, such as televisions made of cardboard or polystyrene microwaves. They could even lay on life-sized mannequins dressed as Billy Bowden or Aleem Dar for batsmen to abuse in the event of an unexpectedly early return to the pavilion.

Thursday, 24th February
It’s easy to criticise SKY’s coverage and its fun too. But it would be remiss of me to ignore their excellent selection policy for this World Cup. Regular bores Botham, Lloyd, Ward and the rest are off playing golf in Asia and so the production staff have had to dig a little deeper into the pundit selection box in order to put together a team that is well balanced, strong in all departments and capable of going all the way to the final without sneezing into their lapel microphones.

The line up has something for every viewer: a big one, a medium-sized one and a little one. Bob Willis is languidly pessimistic in a doom-laden fashion, ever ready to point out just exactly why everything is rubbish. Michael Holding’s flashes of anger and punchy opinions are disguised with a smooth delivery and Robert Croft is doing his best, though his mouth and his larynx do not always appear to be in sync, which may just be down to the demands of the Welsh accent. Even captain Gower has upped his game and is dangerously close to being animated.

But it isn’t all aromatic in the SKY herb garden. This tournament’s new toy takes the form of an interactive television screen which enables them to enhance the experience of the viewer by whooshing a small icon of Jonathon Trott into a screen-filling portrait, or to play at being Geoff Miller and choosing whether Ravi Bopara or Luke Wright should bat at six. That is, when it works. But this device really comes into its own when the touch-screen technology fails to comply and the former pro of the moment is left waving forlornly at the screen like a demented window cleaner or a sorcerer who can’t remember the magic word.

Not content with their morning debauchery, the criminals then went on a wanton spree of reckless autograph-signing © Getty Images

Saturday, 15th January
So why didn’t Australia win the Ashes? A batting line-up crumblier than a 500-year-old fruit cake? Bowlers who flung down more pies than a malfunctioning high-velocity pie-making machine? A selection policy based around the roulette wheel? No, the truth is much simpler. On the first morning of the Boxing Day Test, captain Clarke and first mate Hughes attended a breakfast function. Hughes had a croissant, Clarke ordered a low-fat frappaccino with cinnamon sprinkles. The rest is history.

Most of us in the cricket-playing world have come to an understanding with Defeat. We accept him as an old acquaintance, like one of those people you kind of know, whose company you don’t particularly like but who you can never quite seem to get rid of. And he’s not so bad really. When he does pop round he just sits quietly in the corner, looking fed up. Providing he remembers to wipe his feet and doesn’t drop digestive crumbs on the carpet, it isn’t too much of an ordeal to accommodate him.

But Australia and Defeat do not get on well at all. Down under, they see this latest Ashes setback as a sign that the cricket gods are angry. And when gods are angry they must be appeased. So the elders of Australian cricket are casting about for a sacrificial victim to help them relaunch their currently beached national sport. And in the absence of dumb animals it is generally accepted that the youngest and the prettiest members of the crew feel the knife for the greater good.

“They were interviewed at 7.30am,” revealed a shocked Scapegoat Finder General, James Sutherland. “Some of us are still in our Lalit Modi pyjamas at that hour!”

During previous, more successful eras, Clarke and Hughes would be copping it, not because they had breakfast in public on the morning of a Test, but because they were capable of walking in a straight line at that time of day. Ingeniously, Sutherland manages to insinuate this too. See how metrosexual Clarke is? He can’t even be unprofessional in a manly way. Breakfast functions? What would David Boon say?

Sunday, 16th January
Andrew Strauss has been explaining why Paul Collingwood is only a little bit dropped. He needs to “clear his mind” apparently. In fact, Strauss repeated this phrase no less than four times, until it became a little unnerving. It makes you wonder what exactly is on Collingwood’s mind. Has he dared to voice dissent about the regime? Has he not been taking his Team England medication? Does he need re-education?

This England team puts me in mind of a self-help group that has been together just a bit too long, or possibly even the early stages of a cult. There are the vulnerable misfits (one-time failures, young fast bowlers with anger-management issues, immigrants confused about their identity). There is the sinister figurehead, with the misleadingly pleasant surname and the grating accent. And there is the scary right-hand man with the terrifying smile and the menacing platitudes.

The smug videos, the funny little ritual dances, the unnaturally cheerful demeanour, the converging hairstyles; these are the tell-tale signs of group mind-control and a dysfunctional family dynamic. We all know where this is going. One minute they’re an impressively well-drilled and close-knit unit of personable sportsmen, the next they’re barricading themselves into the Lord’s Long Room as police marksmen take up position and Henry Blofeld tries to talk them out via a loud hailer. Take your chance, Paul, get out now while you still can!

Shilpa Shetty can’t contain her excitement at the launch of her new venture: Big Brother: Airborne, in partnership with Kingfisher © AFP

Saturday, 8th January
I’m not sure the PCB have quite got the hang of this anti-corruption thing. The dial on their administrative machinery appears to have two settings: “suspect no one” and “suspect everyone”, and at the moment it is stuck firmly on the latter.

Danish Kaneria has not been charged with any crime and is not under investigation by the ICC. And yet he is persona non grata in Pakistan selection circles, as likely to get a game as Barack Obama, Rolf Harris or “President” Asif Ali Zardari, veteran spinner and connoisseur of the cut.

Why is this so? I have a theory. The PCB, having been late converts to the benefits of fighting corruption, are now zealots in the cause and, like all zealots, have to take things that little bit too far. And what’s the only surefire way to prevent players from fixing cricket matches? Simple. Don’t ever let them play in any matches!

Sunday, 9th January
The work of conceptual artist Lalit Modi continues to make waves. This weekend, the Situationist collective known as “The IPL” staged a live “auction” at which cricketers were led onto a stage one at a time and “sold” to “franchise owners”, who threw sacks of gold coins at the mediocre players but completely ignored the good ones.

Said one leading art critic:

“The way they subverted cricket’s outmoded patterns of talent hierarchy was breathtaking in its artistic vision. I particularly liked the bit where they put $400,000 next to Michael Yardy’s name. That was hilarious.”

Sourav Ganguly was unavailable to comment (although he is now available for after-dinner engagements and pantomime at very reasonable rates.)

Monday, 10th January
This winter’s disagreeable turn of events for Ricky P has caused a certain amount of introspection in the little fella. He wants nothing less than a review of the whole structure of Australian cricket. Next month Merv Hughes and Jeff Thomson are to lead a fact-finding mission to ECB headquarters to find out just what kind of futuristic, state of the art, next-generation set-up we’ve got in England that has enabled us to produce players of the calibre of Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott.

To help speed the process along, I’ve summarised the key changes that the Aussies will need to make if they want to be more like us.

Break up those large, uncompetitive states with their concentration of resources and streamlined scouting and coaching networks and replace them with 18 or so smaller teams who will not be accountable to anyone.

Ideally, incorporate the word “shire” or “sex” into the titles of Australian teams. For example: Victoriashire, Queenslandsex, South Australiashire etc.

Quadruple the amount of cricket played domestically and introduce two new tournaments, at least one of which should be in an irrelevant format, such as, say, 35 or 43 overs.

Ensure that most of the money generated by Cricket Australia is shared amongst the chairpersons of the 18 teams, who in turn are advised to spend it on foreign cricketers, ugly new pavilions and luxury trouser presses.

Identify the 10 most promising players in South Africa and send them complimentary Australian passports.

Obviously there is a little more to it than that. Cricket Australia might also find it useful to try doing absolutely nothing for 20 years, and if questioned, explain that these things have a habit of working themselves out and that it’s all cyclical anyway.

So don’t worry Ricky. Just follow our example and before you can say “Allen Stanford!” the plastic replica of the Ashes urn will be back in Australian hands.

"What do you mean with a little spit and polish I’ll be as good as new?" © Getty Images

Saturday, 1st January
Sometimes you just have to despair about the modern cricket fan. A number of Bangladeshi cricket lovers have let themselves down today. Why? Because they were desperate to get tickets for the World Cup. What is the matter with these people? Don’t they know that 50-over cricket is like, so last millennium? A great many journalists have gone to a great deal of trouble explaining why we shouldn’t like this format. Have they just been wasting ink? Get with the programme, people!

Sunday, 2nd January
The shake-up in the New Zealand cricket system seems to have brought on a mood of melancholy and despair amongst their players. Now Daniel Vettori is sulking:

“Why are we playing these extended one-day series? What’s the point?”

I understand, Daniel, really I do, but we can’t just cancel them all, just because you aren’t very good at them. I mean, did England refuse to play Test matches in the 1990s, just because we were hopeless? Chin up, old chap!

Monday, 3rd January
Ricky Ponting is due to have surgery on his little finger this week, but in a bold move, Cricket Australia have brought in some of the leading scientists in the field of biomechanics in a bid to rejuvenate Punter and extend his career for a few more years.

“Originally the plan was for Ricky to be phased out in 2011,” said Professor Hilditch, “But that was before we realised how bad Michael Clarke was at captaincy. So we’ve decided to upgrade the old guy and equip him for the future challenge of hanging around until we can find a half-decent skipper.”

In a pioneering procedure, Ricky’s pinky will be replaced with a laser pointing device with which to dazzle incoming bowlers; his right eye will be fitted with a sphere detection system, enabling him to pick up those hard-to-spot 85mph deliveries from James Anderson and he will wear special gloves that automatically secrete saliva every five seconds, thus removing the need to spit on his palms incessantly.

But perhaps the most challenging part of the procedure is the never-before-attempted brain swap. Former Australian captain Ian Chappell has agreed to temporarily exchange brains with Ricky. If all goes well, it is a win-win arrangement. Australia will get a half-decent captain and levels of grumpiness amongst Channel Nine’s commentary team will remain unaffected.

Tuesday, 4th January
So far in this Ashes series, England have led the way in all areas: runs, wickets, catches and, thanks to KP, talking nonsense in public. But Australia have finally had enough of being outdone in the gibberish stakes and so Mitchell Johnson has stepped up to the plate. Fittingly, his approach to public speaking is remarkably similar to his bowling method: he just shuffles up to the microphone and lets go.

“If an umpire thinks it’s a no-ball, he should call it straight away, rather than waiting to call it.”

Well, indeed. Who could argue with that? On the other hand, if he only thinks it might be a no-ball, but he’s not entirely sure, why shouldn’t he avail himself of the technology and get the decision right? “Better quick than accurate” might well be Johnson’s motto, but I’m not sure it’s the best way to umpire.

"And I hereby officially blame the aliens for all my bad hair days" © Getty Images

Friday, 24th December
Normally, here at the Long Handle we enjoy a good fact-hunt. What could be more stirring than middle-aged men in suits crouched in the metaphorical undergrowth, diligently tracking their prey through thickets of hearsay and forests of misinformation? But the PCB’s latest fact-finding expedition into the Haider affair, wasn’t much of a hunt. It was more like a fact-foraging trip, in which facts that had already been left lying around were gathered up, dusted down and rearranged.

In trying to get to the bottom of things, the three wise men seem to have relied entirely on casual conversations rather than written submissions. Perhaps they were trying to save the rainforests. Yet surprisingly, although this fact-finding report is light on, er, facts, it does find plenty of room for insinuation, gossip and innuendo. Thus they are able to inform us that Haider is “a person who is easily convinced into believing whatever is said to him”. Perhaps they should offer him a job at the PCB?

Saturday, 25th December
Disturbing news from Kerala, where there appears to be a kerfuffle about the building of a new stadium. Some people are objecting on the flimsy basis that the area contains mangrove swamps and important wetlands. Well, what nonsense. The world is amply supplied with land that is wet, but what we are really short of is enormous concrete bowls with plastic seats, ample car parking and floodlights. Crack on with the building, chaps, and if the crocodiles give you any trouble, offer them free IPL tickets.

Sunday, 26th December
There has been a reshuffle in New Zealand cricket and Kyle Mills is not happy. He knows who to blame, too. No, not the players. Apparently, it’s our fault, for being stupid and gullible.

“…the media think they have all the answers and express this to the public and the public buy into it.”

Ah, the public. He means us. You and me, the plebs who pay Mr Mills’ wages and turn up in our thousands (or in the case of New Zealand, our dozens) to watch him play cricket. We are to blame for the abandonment of the previous regime, for the installation of Mr John Wright, and above all for the 11 consecutive one-day defeats that poor Mr Mills has had to endure. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Monday, 27th December
Bad news for parents with cricket-loving kids. The manufacturers of the bestselling pint-sized interactive cricket doll, Lil Ricky, have announced an urgent recall of this popular product. We have reprinted the press release in its entirety:

“It has come to our attention that there are one or two technical issues that could affect your enjoyment of Lil Ricky and so we are advising parents whose children own one of these items to return them to the factory.

The problem appears to involve the ‘Disgruntled’ setting, in which the doll is supposed to walk round in circles for about 30 seconds, grumbling semi-audible expletives, before settling back into a slip-fielding position. Unfortunately some of the dolls are malfunctioning. One concerned parent has reported that instead of switching itself off, her son’s Lil Ricky stood remonstrating with him for eight minutes, then had an argument with the family cat before stomping off into the garden, shaking its little round plastic head.

Our technical department are aware of these problems, which seem to be as a result of the product reaching the end of its working life. We would ask people to return their Lil Rickys and in exchange we will send them our latest toy, ‘Captain Pup’, a loveable little chap with a cheeky green cap, who can yelp the Australian national anthem. Comes with free grooming kit, tattoo transfers and detachable credibility.”

Sreesanth decides to teach the South Africans a lesson after they hid his hairbrush © AFP

Wednesday, 15th December
Steven Smith has been told not to worry too much about runs or wickets. His main role will be to bring the fun.

“For me it is about making sure I am having fun and making sure everyone else around me is having fun.”

Selector Hilditch, who has been receiving treatment for a nervous tic and a tendency to cackle insanely at inappropriate moments, said that Smith’s comedic abilities were essential if Australia were to regain the Ashes.

“Nothing is more vital to a successful team than forced jollity ha ha, he he! Tomorrow you will see a different team. There will be fixed grins all round, some of the players are experimenting with red noses and custard pies will be issued at the drinks break.”

Smith has apparently studied for a Masters degree in Practical Pleasantries at the Allan Lamb Centre for Irritating Personality Traits and is keen to put his skills to work, bringing the fun back to the Aussie team.

“After all, everyone else is laughing at us, so it’s about time we learned to laugh at ourselves,” said Smith, before squirting journalists with water from a plastic daisy attached to his lapel.

Thursday, 16th December
It appears that lie detector tests are to be introduced to root out corrupt players. Steve Waugh put the case for their use: “If a bloke’s got nothing to hide, why not?”

Fair enough, I’m convinced. And this opens up all kinds of possibilities. I understand that the ICC are considering going one step further and reintroducing the ducking stool, a popular device from the Middle Ages. Players suspected of naughtiness will be seated in the contraption and repeatedly ducked under water. If they drown, their innocence will be proven and their posthumous reputations restored. If they fail to drown, then clearly they must be in league with evil forces and should therefore be burned at the stake, or possibly forced to go on Shane Warne’s new chat show.

Friday, 17th December
India may be losing the Test, but coiffure-wise, they are well ahead. Jacques Kallis is undoubtedly hairier than he was before, but having come into such splendid follicular good fortune, he hasn’t yet decided what he is going to do with it, the result being a kind of floppy-fringed insouciance. And the rest of the South Africans have always been resolutely of the “short back and sides” school.

Not so the tourists. Ishant’s locks are as luxuriant as ever, but even he is eclipsed, (literally, depending on the angle of the sun) by Sreesanth’s ‘do. With his big bold hairband and big bad hair, he is a one-man celebration of the late 1970s. Indeed, with all that pouting, shouting and complaining, he is starting to resemble an Asian McEnroe, although the former Wimbledon champion would probably make a better mid-on.

Meanwhile, back home, I have seen some alarming pictures from Eden Gardens that appear to show a building site engaged in a fight with a cricket stadium with the outcome of the contest still in the balance. The BCCI are on the case, and have given every assurance that things will be ready on time, but if you are thinking of going to any of the World Cup games at that venue, it might be a good idea to pack a screwdriver and a hard hat.

Wasim Bari (trusty Wrist-Slapper of Doom not in picture) © AFP

Saturday, 11th December
What is the key to defeating corruption in cricket? Tough sentences for those caught and convicted? Full disclosure of cricketers’ financial dealings and assets? Nope. The secret, apparently, is education. So the PCB have assigned to Wasim Bari the vital task of explaining to Pakistani cricketers that it is wrong to take money in exchange for fixing the results of cricket matches.

The PCB have spared no expense in backing Bari with a hard-hitting poster campaign. Designed by Ijaz Butt’s great-grandson and utilising the latest in wax-colouration technology, the poster features a cartoon cricketer receiving a bundle of money from a suspicious looking man in a fedora. Below this startling visual representation of all that is wrong with the modern game is printed the word, “Bad” in bold capitals.

And Mr Bari has an uncompromising message for the cricketers of Pakistan:

“It has never been acceptable for players to get involved in fixing, apart from when it was, but it certainly isn’t anymore, not even if you don’t get caught.”

Sunday, 12th December
Following the revelation that Nathan Hauritz has sold some of his cricket memorabilia in a fit of pique, Cricket Australia have retaliated by putting Hauritz up for sale on eBay, along with an assortment of discarded spinners including a Krezja, a Doherty, a Casson and a McGain.

The full listing describes the job lot of offspinners, left-armers and leggies as:

“Unwanted selections, barely used, some slight wear and tear around the edges. Would make lovely gift for struggling village cricket team. Could also make eye-catching garden ornaments or theatrical dummies for West End. Baggy green caps and lingering feeling of resentment included.”

Monday, 13th December
Michael Beer isn’t the only new face in the Australian squad. Johnson Mitchell is an exciting prospect: a dashing young fast bowler known for his immaculate dental hygiene and uncanny ability to land at least three balls an over on the cut strip. The young lad apparently celebrated his call-up by getting a tattoo of a pitch drawn on his left forearm, featuring helpful arrows indicating where to bowl.

One or two irresponsible journalists have suggested that Johnson Mitchell bears an uncanny resemblance to Aussie reject and all-round no-hoper Mitchell Johnson, an accusation that Andrew Hilditch, wearing a foil hat, was quick to refute.

“Mitchell Johnson is a failed pie-chucker who simply cannot be relied upon in a crucial Ashes battle; he is a luxury we can’t afford. Johnson Mitchell, on the other hand, is a deadly fast bowler who will cause the English batsmen sleepless nights, particularly since we had that radar device fitted to his cranium.”

Tuesday, 14th December
The news that the 96-year-old politician and part-time spinner Sanath Jayasuriya has been selected for Sri Lanka’s provisional World Cup squad has drawn a swift response from the ICC’s Dignity Department.

“Mr Jayasuriya hasn’t reached double figures since 2007 and this selection is a violation of his human rights, specifically, his right not to be forced to embarrass himself in public We all remember watching Mike Gatting lumbering out to bat in 1993 and surely no one wants to see a repeat of those horrific scenes.”

However, a delighted Jayasuriya has stated that he hopes to be in contention for the 2015 tournament and, dodgy hip permitting, the 2019 and 2023 editions as well.

“You’re only as young as you feel,” quipped the elderly bat-swisher, “And I don’t feel a day over 67.”

The only way to investigate such mysterious occurences is to trick them into occurring and then secretly videotape them © Cricinfo Ltd

Saturday, 4th December
It can’t be easy to be a fan of the Royals, the Kings XI or the Kochi Calamaties. Should you bin your Ramesh Powar tea cosy, unstitch your embroidered Graeme Smith underpants and try to learn the theme tune of the Super Kings? Or do you put your fingers in your ears when the IPL news is on and look forward to the player auction (whenever it may be) as though nothing has happened?

We don’t yet know, for example, whether Rajasthan will be involved in IPL4, but they are being allowed to take part in the auction. This is rather like letting your daughter choose some new goodies from the toy shop but warning her that she might not be allowed to play with them when she gets home. At the time of writing, we don’t know how many teams will be taking part, what the format will be or who will be playing for whom. By the time the IPL gets a grip, we may no longer care.

Sunday, 5th December
Congratulations to Darren Sammy and his chaps. Not losing is a significant step forward for Caribbean cricket and not losing in Sri Lanka is almost as praiseworthy an achievement as not losing in India. And though there was more than a hint of dampness around, the West Indians were not, unlike our favourite cousins from the Antipodes, praying for it. The rain merely spoilt the series, it didn’t decide it.

But it is heartening to see that complaining about the weather is just as popular in Sri Lanka as it is England. Speaking for elderly women at bus stops everywhere, Kumar Sangakkara complained that, “The weather’s all topsy turvy these days”. He wants the authorities to investigate rainfall patterns, but to be honest, I’m not sure the ICC will prove any more adept at meteorology than it is at cricket administration.

Monday, 6th December
Australia’s inability to take a wicket is becoming baffling. They’ve tried everything: wide balls, full-tosses, half-volleys, balls that don’t spin, non-swinging balls, slow balls: nothing has worked. Some are suggesting Australia are losing because they are too nice and have forgotten how to be snarly and growly. Cricket is a manly game, for men with hairy chests and incidents such as Ricky’s complaints about the sledging on the first day are a namby-pamby embarrassment.

But, aside from being an interesting insight into the peculiarities of the Australian psyche, this is a misrepresentation of the facts. Ricky was not complaining about the unpleasantness of the sledging, but the feebleness of it. The legacy of the Chuckle brothers and of Dennis, Rod and Jeff was being insulted by the dainty name-calling and wishy-washy chat of Prior, Anderson and baby Finn. Michael Vaughan, on Test Match Special, described it as “chirping”. Chirping is a high-pitched sing-song noise made by delicate little creatures that can become intensely irritating. Sounds about right.

Tuesday, 7th December
The Dilscoop is a circus shot that cannot fail to entertain. If it comes off, it’s an “oooh look at that” moment, like a daring highwire somersault. If it fails, it is funnier than a collapsible three-wheeled-van packed full of clowns. Today’s effort from Brendon, The Incredible Tattooed Man, was of the latter variety. Bravely, he went down on one knee, wafted his bat up and down like he was trying to fan a small fire, missed the ball entirely and finally toppled over into the dirt. It was quite possibly my favourite Dilfail of 2010.

Too late Mickey Arthur realised as his molars cracked that the aliens had tampered with his toffee © Getty Images

Wednesday, 3rd November
The head of some company or other responsible for producing a kind of digital whatchamacallit today tried to reassure reluctant Indian cricketers that there is nothing to be scared of, that everything is perfectly safe.

“We need to spend time with umpires and players, captains of teams, so that we can open up the entire Pandora’s box of the technology…”

I’m not sure this is a great sales pitch. Pandora’s box, as we know, was a container reputed to contain all the plagues, evils and diseases of the world, which, once released, could never be returned. No wonder Sachin wants nothing to do with it.

Thursday, 4th November
According to our chums with the laptops and laminated passes, Marcus North is either clinging on to his Test spot by his fingernails or about to be made captain, or possibly both. Furthermore the Australian dressing room is riven with infighting and yet, at the same time, the epitome of loving harmony; whilst Michael Clarke, depending on which paper you read, is a commanding leader of great sagacity and authority or an incompetent fool who can barely be trusted to arrange his knife and fork, let alone a 5-4 field.

It’s all rather baffling for the humble cricket fan, but fortunately help is at hand. The Department of Frivolous Algebra at the University of Fake Science have today explained this strange phenomenon with a useful formula:

Hype = X (Y*Z)

in which X is an event of no significance*, Y is a variable representing the number of journalists who have blagged a holiday to Australia, and Z represents the amount of time said journalists have on their hands once they get there.

In this case it appears that the operation of the Hype Equation is resulting in the inflation of a mid-ranking struggle between an ordinary yet inconsistent team and their inconsistent yet ordinary opponents into the greatest sporting clash since Ali versus Foreman. Meanwhile numbers 1 and 2 in the Test rankings are limbering up for a three-match series in December. Hype anyone? Apparently not.

Friday, 5th November
It seems that South Africans are not yet fully conversant with one of the great literary genres. A cricket autobiography is supposed to be a tiresome collection of dressing-room pranks interspersed with golfing stories, lists of scores and excuses. It is designed to be a birthday present, a draught excluder, a coffee table filler, or if it is large enough, a useful hurling implement with which to stun a charging rhinoceros. It is not, however, intended to be in any way interesting or readable.

Yet last week Herschelle Gibbs released his unputdownable tale of sex, cliques and rock and roll. And now we have a taster of former coach Mickey “Micky” Arthur’s contribution to sporting literature, a manuscript so dangerous that it has already provoked the threat of legal action from the PCB. The passage of the book that has stimulated Ijaz Butt’s sue-reflex relates to a one-day game back in 2007, a game Pakistan lost. As we all now know, match-fixing, spot-fixing or associated general naughtiness is the only possible explanation for a Pakistan defeat:

“How else do you explain a batting side needing only 40 runs with seven wickets in hand and still losing?”

How else indeed, Mickey. Of course it could just have been that Pakistan didn’t play very well. But, hey, who wants to pay R154 to read about that?

* Such as, for example, the news that some guy in a hotel bar reckons he heard some bloke say that he had it on good authority from his uncle’s first wife that a geezer who’d been to school with Ricky Ponting’s cousin met a woman who might have been Greg Chappell’s cleaner, who swore blind that she heard Marcus North or someone who looks very much like him say that he’d like to be Australian captain.

”No, I don’t know what a &%$*@ Asha Bhosle is, you #$%@^” © Getty Images

Wednesday, 27th October
I’m enjoying the action from the UAE. Pakistan may be depleted but today they were the clear winners in two important areas. Their fans had the best costumes (top marks to the man in green and white feathers) and their batsmen had the silliest dismissals. Akmal minor managed to detect some ambiguity in Misbah’s fairly unequivocal shout of “Nooooooo!”, Afridi once again attempted to be the first man to launch a cricket ball into space, and Imran Farhat, attacked by a mosquito, sent the wee beastie hurtling over the pavilion, missing the ball in the process but teaching that particular insect a lesson he won’t soon forget.

Inevitably, though, there’s always someone who has to spoil things for everyone else. The otherwise estimable Ramiz Raja breached UN Resolution 2101 (Deployment of Prohibited Clichés) by bringing buckets into proceedings where no buckets were required. After one edge had not quite carried to Graeme Smith, Ramiz informed us that he was “…surprised to see the ball miss his bucket-like hands”.

This particular simile is not only as irritating as an armchair stuffed with thistles, it is also vaguely insulting, implying that a player has an unfair advantage on account of the enormous pail-shaped receptacles on the ends of his arms.

Thursday, 28th October
Fugitive from justice Lalit Modi today issued a global broadcast. Sitting in a leather armchair whilst stroking a reluctant cat, Modi invited the BCCI to come and get him if they thought they could find him. It is believed that he may be hiding in a top secret headquarters built into the base of a dormant volcano, or possibly even an underwater complex constructed in the shape of Ravi Shastri’s head. Intelligence agencies had warned that the evil genius may be plotting to throw the world into chaos by launching a series of deadly domestic Twenty20 competitions. However, when this was put to Modi, he said, “Nah, already done that.”

Friday, 29th October
As the old proverb says, “Four’s company, five’s an insufficiently cost-effective utilisation of human resources.” Yes, it appears that our antipodean friends need to lose one of their national pin-stickers, and in keeping with their ongoing mission to sex up the sport, Cricket Australia eschewed the traditional committee meeting and opted for a talent contest. Each of the three candidates for the chop was forced to perform before an invited audience and the public got to vote for their favourite. CA had originally threatened to ask the contestants to recite some of their own poetry, but after an intervention from Amnesty International, settled instead on a disco theme.

First up was Merv Hughes, whose expletive-laden version of a Gloria Gaynor classic, “I Will F****** Survive, You F******” was performed with characteristic gusto, although the judges felt that the high heels didn’t particularly add to the ensemble. David Boon hadn’t fully grasped the rules, choosing to belch the first four verses of the national anthem before being helped from the stage, and Jamie Cox opted for something by Norwegian thrash metal combo Toxic Death, admitting afterwards that he had probably chosen the wrong tune for the occasion.

In the end, though, it was big Merv who got the boot, which means that Cox and Boon will now go on to appear in the Christmas special edition of The Selector Factor, where they will be up against Geoff Miller, Mohsin Khan and the man who chose not to pick David Gower for the 1993 tour of India.

Aggressive, with a dash of flair. Will rip Englishmen to shreds for fun © Getty Images

Wednesday, 20th October
Shane Warne, in his attempt to break the world record for pre-Ashes sound bites, has today found a new angle by offering us a zoological perspective on the merits of the current Australian captain:

“I think Ricky is at his best when he shows his Tassie devil side, which is aggressive, with a dash of flair.”

It transpires that Warne was referring to the Tasmanian Devil or Sarcophilus harrisii, a carnivore of the family Dasyuridae. Wikipedia has this to say about the apparently Ponting-like marsupial:

“It is characterised by its stocky and muscular build, black fur, extremely loud and disturbing screech, pungent odour and ferocity when feeding.”

It seems a bit harsh at first glance, but then again I’ve never seen Ricky eat a meat pie, or indeed stood close enough to him to offer an informed opinion on the pungency of his odour. Still, he might be forgiven for thinking that this is not perhaps the most felicitous of supportive pre-Ashes mammalian comparisons, particularly given that the Tasmanian Devil was declared an endangered species in 2009.

Thursday, 21st October
Under intense pressure to do something about the bloated county fixture list, the ECB structure group have made their long-awaited recommendations. In a bold move, they have proposed an initial period of inaction, followed by inactivity in the medium term, leading to further inertia going forwards. They have tentatively suggested the possibility that something might be done in 2012, but have sensibly not committed themselves as to what that something might be.

As they explained, change cannot be rushed into without a proper review, and given that county cricket has only been running for 150 years, it would be far too risky to draw precipitate conclusions. They were able to report, however, that they have taken action in one crucial area. It was proposed that the tea served at future committee meetings should be Darjeeling rather than Earl Grey. A working party was appointed and is expected to report on the matter by 2015 or possibly later.

Friday, 22nd October
In another triumph for the “names in a hat” method of captaincy selection, the WICB has chosen Darren Sammy to be the team’s next skipper, on the grounds that a) he wants to do the job, and b) he isn’t as good as the last chap so they won’t have to pay him so much. He is taking on the task with the touching naivete of over-promoted captains of dysfunctional teams everywhere, promising that he will be both bold and frank and referring to himself in the third person:

“That’s what Darren Sammy wants to do. Bring back the joy.”

However, the WICB were quick to issue a statement today reprimanding the new boy for his unguarded comments:

“We wish to make it clear that, as stipulated in his captaincy contract at Paragraph 127, subsection 17a, boldness and frankness are prohibited behaviours. We will also be monitoring levels of joy in Caribbean cricket, to ensure that they remain within acceptable levels, and would remind Mr Sammy that his remit does not extend beyond his core responsibilities, namely: taking the blame, doing what he is told and standing at second slip with his arms folded.’

“Yes, Cosmo want me to be on the cover of their ‘Boys You Could Have Taken Home to Mother But Not Anymore’ issue” © AP

Tuesday, 12th October
We all enjoy watching top-class administrators strut their stuff. Whether it’s live auditing from Dubai or accounts reconciliation at Lord’s, millions of us around the world are avid followers of the bureaucratic superstars of the modern era. But many people worry. Are there enough kids willing to try their hand at pen-pushing? Where are the administrative heroes of tomorrow going to come from?

Well, worry no more, because the Global Cricket Academy, unveiled in Dubai today, will not just be for players or umpires. It will become, in the words of the ICC’s President, “the centre of excellence for cricket’s best and brightest administrators”. This is exciting news and here at the Long Handle we have been fortunate enough to have a glimpse of the curriculum that awaits the chosen form-filling few.

It is a challenging course. Students must first master the “Post-Prandial Committee Meeting Endurance Simulator”, in which they learn how to avoid nodding off in the boardroom when Haroon Lorgat is talking. They will also face a test in which they are given 20 minutes to fill a blank calendar with as many fixtures as they can, and to help them keep on top of corruption, the pen-pushing hopefuls will be taught how to pop down to a newsagent to buy the News of the World.

Wednesday 13th October
After a not entirely successful trip to India and an unfortunate slide to a point some way south of England in the ICC Test rankings (which yesterday prompted the Australian government to declare a national state of emergency) Ricky Ponting has been defending his star No. 4 batsman against recent criticisms.

“Ah look, I don’t buy the argument that he’s not what he used to be. Sure, Pup’s nearly 30, but if you ask me, he’s as pretty as ever. You don’t become an ugly bloke overnight, unless you get your hair done like Doug. I’ve got every confidence that come the Ashes, he’ll be back taking his shirt off in a tasteful way for one of the better women’s magazines.”

Thursday 14th October
At long last, someone is to be held to account for the monstrosity that is the mid-over advertisement. Admittedly it is poor old Lalit Modi, who appears to be in the frame for most of the world’s ills, including, as I understand it, the hole in the ozone layer, the existence of reality television and the assassination of JFK. And technically he is not being charged for foisting this abomination on the cricket viewer, rather for the way that the advertising was sold. Still, it’s a start.

Next we need to go after the people who introduced the rotating sight screen that doubles as an advertising hoarding and mysteriously seizes up at inopportune moments. Let’s bring to justice the man who first thought a blimp would be an exciting addition to the cricket experience. And Interpol must surely by now be on the trail of Shane Warne for aiding and abetting some of the worst adverts in the, admittedly fairly undistinguished, history of the scalp-refurnishing industry.

Friday 15th October
The news that James Anderson has cracked a rib at England’s dangerous training camp for boys is unfortunate. Team England had previously earned some criticism for letting their chaps play football, so they decided to steer away from such risky activities for their end-of-season jaunt, opting instead to have their more important players punch each other in the stomach for an hour or two. The good news is that Jimmy should be fit in time to take on Graeme Swann in the morale boosting pre-Ashes sword-swallowing and scorpion-juggling competitions.

If Shilpa goes, Chanel goes with her © AFP

Saturday, October 9th
Bangalore is Kumble land and the man himself was in the house, aloft in the stands, looking on like a benevolent cricket god. His every appearance on screen provoked roars from what looked suspiciously like a full house. The faithful were compelled to view their cricket through barriers, which at first I took for another example of the appalling way paying cricket fans are treated in this part of the world. Then I realised these were not nets designed to pen the audience in but an enormous mesh erected to protect the public from the giant marauding insects of the locale.

In an unfortunate piece of scheduling, the Association of Winged Invertebrates (Karnataka Branch) had arranged their annual convention for the first day of a crucial Test match. Insects are, in my experience, a stubborn bunch and so, despite the arrival of 15 men in white, they continued about their business regardless. The effect on the viewer was disconcerting, as an occasional wing brushed the camera and, periodically, enormous creatures loomed into view. I’m sure at one point I saw Mitchell Johnson catch one with his tongue and begin to chew. Always had my doubts about that one.

Sunday, October 10th
You may think it drastic that the new IPL chiefs have expelled two franchises, but when you read the full details of what these franchises were up to, you’ll see they had no choice.

Rajasthan, it appears, had not cleared their headed notepaper with the Branded Stationery Authorisation Committee, and Kings XI Punjab fell foul of the little-known “Apostrophe Accuracy” clause in the franchise regulations, since it wasn’t clear whether the XI belonged to one King or several Kings, or indeed, whether it was a team comprised entirely of kings. They had been given three years to clear the matter up, so they only had themselves to blame, really.

Proper and full implementation of all regulations and a rigorously ethical approach to administration are, as we know, the hallmarks of the BCCI. Still, although we are all no doubt glad to be free of these two evil franchises, you have to feel a little sorry for the television producers. What on earth will they be able to focus on now that Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty will no longer be pitch-side? The cricket? Miss Zinta’s antics in particular were the most compelling part of the Punjab effort; she certainly showed more energy in the cause than any of the men in red, white and silvery bits.

Monday, October 11th
Blessed are the peacemakers and few are more blessed than Mr Ijaz Butt. In his ongoing efforts to heal rifts and bring about reconciliations, he has sent a letter to Younis Khan. Claims that Younis has not received the communication are nonsense. I happen to know that Mr Butt personally scribbled something illegible on a post-it note, wrote, “To Younis Khan” on the other side and dropped it out of his office window. Having made all reasonable efforts to contact the batting fugitive, he cannot be held responsible for the failures of the Pakistan Postal Service.

It is not clear what significance we should attach to this letter. Until recently, the words “Younis" and “Khan” were outlawed at PCB HQ and the chap in question was at all times to be referred to as “That Man”. His offence, as I understand it, is that he hasn’t yet apologised for his as yet-undisclosed naughtiness that led to a ban, which was subsequently rescinded for no apparent reason.

If Lewis Carroll were around today he would no doubt be adding a new chapter to his most famous work, in which the heroine wanders into a PCB office by mistake and is reduced to a gibbering wreck by the goings-on therein.

Andrew Strauss keeps his mouth clamped after the ECB issues him a warning that England's matches would have to be PG-rated if he showed any teeth © Getty Images

Wednesday, 6th October
For the second year in a row, the ICC attempted to steal the thunder of the Long Handle Awards by holding their own, smaller-scale ceremony on the same day. Happily, they did not succeed in deflecting attention away from the main event and this year’s winners were celebrated by a packed audience (Mrs Hughes and Hughes junior) in a plush auditorium (the Hughes living room) and hosted by a distinguished former player (yours truly wearing a Ronnie Irani mask).

There was a surprise winner of the Most Appearances In The Long Handle Blog By A Former Indian Spin-Bowling AllRounder Award as Mr Ravishankar Shastri scooped the prize. A clearly emotional Shastri made a moving acceptance speech: “Who? What? Look, stop calling me or you’ll be hearing from my lawyers! No, I’m not shouting! You want to hear me shout? I’ll shout, I’ll shout so loud I’ll make your eardrums pop!”

Twit Of The Year is a relatively new category for which there was fierce competition from the English contingent. Messrs Pietersen, Mascarenhas and Rafiq all put in sterling efforts, but in the end, the panel of judges went for Mr Simon Trundler of Anothershire, whose Tweet to his county captain (“Give me the new ball or I’ll burn down your house”) was judged to have communicated a clear message with brevity and a welcome dose of dark humour. Mr Trundler’s prize has been forwarded to the open prison where he is currently awaiting trial.

Finally, there was another new award up for grabs this year: Captain With The Most Sinister Grin. Here at the Long Handle, we shy away from seeking undue levity in the physical characteristics of our fellow humans, for obvious reasons. That said, we cannot let the cricket awards year end without giving due credit to the considerable menace inherent in the smile of Mr Andrew Strauss. One judge said, “It gave me the shivers,” and another commented: “It put me in mind of a great white shark trying to sell double glazing to a family of tuna.”

Thursday, 7th October
Hussey major has expressed his disappointment that Cricket Australia didn’t refuse to allow him to play in the Champions League Twenty20. This is an interesting new development. Cricketers have always whinged about burnout. But here we have a subtle variation in which a player criticises his own board for not forcing him to stop playing for a team that he had previously agreed to play for. Kudos to Mr Cricket for his ingenuity and for taking his whingeing to the next level.

Friday, 8th October
Congratulations to Mr Misbah-ul-Haq who became Pakistan’s fourth Test captain this year (and advance congratulations to Mr Younis Khan and Mr Javed Miandad for their appointments in January and April 2011 respectively). Four captains is quite an achievement and equals the record set by England in that crazy summer of 1988 when the nation’s selectors dispensed with skippers as freely as Henry VIII rearranged his marital affairs.

To mark his appointment as Pakistan captain, Mr ul-Haq performed the traditional ritual of drinking an unspecified noxious liquid from an ornate chalice. He was then presented with a framed photograph of Imran Khan lifting the World Cup, a letter of support from the PCB (written, due to stationery cutbacks, in invisible ink) and a Dummies Guide to Cricket Tactics. Finally, he had the benefit of a handshake with Mr Ijaz Butt and (for a reasonable discount) got to take away a copy of the big man’s autobiography: The Butt Doesn’t Stop Here. Good luck Misbah!

Ponting: temper, temper © Getty Images

Friday, 1st October
Watching little Ricky lose it with Zaheer today was just like old times and particularly welcome at the headquarters of Hughes Cricket Toys Limited, where we are well into the marketing phase of our latest product. Sales of the Graeme Swann “Catch a Kitty” board game have slackened of late, so just in time for Christmas, we are delighted to announce the launch of the Ricky Ponting Wind-Up Doll.

Kids will have hours of fun with this pint-sized plastic replica of old Punter himself. Push his buttons and hear him splutter with rage before unleashing a string of semi-audible Aussie expletives. Or twist his nose out of joint and watch him stomp round and round in circles, brandishing his plastic bat until his baggy green slips over his eyes and he falls over. Get ‘em now while his captaincy lasts.

Sunday, 3rd October
The cricket in Mohali hasn’t been bad, but the real action is in the booth, where we are witnessing a fascinating clash for the Hogg-Shastri Lack Of Objectivity Trophy.

Stout Brad is clearly a graduate of the Ian Healy school of commentary, though with more roaring. He has so far managed to refrain from launching into the opening bars of "Advance Australia Fair", but you feel it could happen any moment.

The Ravster is of course, a smoother operator than his commentary chum. He gets the job done in subtler fashion. Take, for instance, the issue of the catch that dismissed Dhoni today. The big guy declared surprise that a catch that had clearly been taken was given, on the grounds that you usually can’t see that kind of catch clearly on replay even though this time you could. Nice work, sir.

Monday, 4th October
It appears that the list of suitors for the Olympic Stadium now includes Essex County Cricket Club. Now I don’t mean to be unkind, but given that the stadium in question holds 80,000, I’m not sure that the tiny band of Essex regulars will quite do the facilities justice. Still, in the same spirit, I have made my own application to use the Olympic Stadium for a couple of family picnics in May 2013. I have offered to do my own catering and promised not to let my daughter draw on the plastic seats.

Tuesday, 5th October
I’m glad that it was India’s youngest spinner who secured the winning runs because up until then it had appeared to be “Pick on Ojha” day at the PCA Stadium. First, Siva claimed he looked like he was going to cry whilst waiting to bat, and then, while standing at the non-striker’s end, he was on the receiving end of that rarest of phenomena: a VVS verbal tirade. The four-letter earful had commentators baffled and Ojha looking like a guilty puppy who knows he has done something wrong but isn’t sure what.

By the end, the stands that had been empty for much of the game were heaving. I like the attitude of the Indian crowds. Test cricket may be the most enthralling flavour of the sport. But it isn’t enthralling seven hours a day. Sometimes it is duller than listening to David Gower reading the shipping forecast. Rather than arriving two hours in advance with three packed meals, a thermos and a scorecard and sitting there all day, it makes far more sense to turn up when it gets exciting, then pop home to feed your parrot or clip your toenails during the quiet bits.

Now Harbhajan Singh's kit to come with this logo © Getty Images

Monday, 27th September
The ICC Health and Safety Risk Assessment into the forthcoming series in India has been completed and has made the following recommendations:

1. To avoid any verbal misadventures, all communication on the field of play must be in ancient Greek.
2. In addition, the slip cordon must stand an extra 20 metres back, so as to remain out of the batsman’s earshot at all times.
3. Sledging will be permitted but only if the sledger has sought the permission of the sledgee and submitted the appropriate form (Sledge.1a.) to the match referee’s office prior to the day’s play.
4. A ten-metre exclusion zone will be established around Harbhajan Singh, who will at all times be required to wear black and yellow tape marked: “Danger: Approach with Caution!”
5. Enormous foam shoulder pads will be issued to all bowlers and batsmen, thereby taking the tension and some of the bruising out of those unfortunate mid-pitch collisions.

With these sensible precautions in place, the safety and well-being of all participants should be ensured. Play nicely chaps, and stay safe!

Tuesday, 28th September
Michael Clarke has advised all players in their mid-to-late 20s with multiple advertising deals and a good chance of becoming Test captain in the next year or so to remain loyal to their country rather than favouring the IPL. I’m with you there, MC. I’ve made exactly the same choice; it’s country every time. Admittedly, the IPL has not yet expressed an interest in my services, but it’s the principle that counts.

Wednesday, 29th September
Scotland’s ingenious method of progressing to the final of the ICC Intercontinental Thingy by refusing to tour Zimbabwe (on the grounds that it’s quite hot and they might lose) suggests possibilities for England ahead of the Ashes. All that is needed is for the UK government to produce a similarly bleak assessment of conditions in Australia. There’s plenty to work with: enormous spiders in the toilet, deadly snakes in your sock drawer and seas stuffed full of unnecessarily vigorous marine creatures.

Then there is the hostile local culture to consider, namely the well-documented breakdown of normal standards of civilised behaviour within the average Australian stadium. Sending Ian Bell into that environment could have serious implications for his well-being. A quick recommendation from the Foreign Office advising against all travel to Australia; the series will be forfeit and England retain the Ashes. Hurrah!

Thursday, 30th September
Despite the fact that the “Reports on the Structure of County Cricket” annexe of the British Library already covers seven acres and has its own bus service, the ECB has decided that what we really need right now is a report on the structure of county cricket. Onlookers, perhaps unschooled in the ways of the ECB, might think this a prelude to a drastic reduction in the Friends Provident Twenty20 Endurance Contest that caused most of July’s cricket time to disappear into a black hole of pointlessness.

However, in my experience, the sane cricket enthusiast should approach these things in the same spirit with which one might tune in to a hastily arranged press conference by the Chairman of the PCB*. Expect the unexpected. It is entirely possible that the ECB will decide instead to increase the number of Twenty20 games and make room in the fixture list by settling the County Championship with a series of coin tosses on April 30. You heard it here first.

* On behalf of the Amateur Society of Satirists, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Mr Butt for the support he has given to our industry over the last few months and I’d like to take this opportunity to wish him many more years of top-level administration.

To throw off suspicion, Adil Rashid lugs the Graeme Swann kitty he nobbled in a XXL laundry bag © Getty Images

Tuesday, 21st September
Another 24 hours have passed and still the journalists camped outside Butt Towers maintain their vigil. His morning doughnut delivery arrives on time. A curtain twitches. But nothing happens. Down at Lahore Central Post Office, a team of postal clerks are on standby, ready to leap into action at the first sign of a robustly built silver-haired gent carrying a package for Dubai. The clock ticks on. The head of the ICC’s Anti-Corruption Unit stares intently at his inbox, waiting for an email from Butty@PCB.nogov.pk. Somewhere a cricket chirps. The tension is unbearable.

Wednesday, 22nd September
It is an unpleasant truth, but the fact remains that sporting events become more compelling when there is an element of antagonism between the competitors. Commentators even have a special cliché for use on such occasions: “a bit of spice”. They don’t specify which spice, though they probably have in mind turmeric or something similar, rather than, say, nutmeg. I can’t imagine David Lloyd declaring, “There’s a bit of cinnamon out there today.”

Spicy or not, there was a feverish, faintly ridiculous feeling in the air that after a truly horrible three weeks, today’s match would somehow settle everything, that through the simple method of one team or another winning a game of cricket, all manner of legal squabbles, unfounded accusations and unresolved punch ups would finally be resolved. It’s certainly cheaper than an ICC investigation or a libel case, but not, perhaps, as accurate in its conclusions.

Largely to blame for this, PCB chairmen aside, are certain tabloid newspapers. Having supped heartily from the broth of controversy, the Sun was today trying to dip its bread in the reheated dregs. The “newspaper” reported a “string of incredible bust-ups” which turned out to be a single not-very-incredible bust-up between Trott and Wahab, under the headline “Strauss: Pakistan must not win series”. You will not be surprised to learn that Strauss said no such thing.

Thursday, 23rd September
The announcement of an Ashes touring squad is always eagerly awaited, although if previous English tours have taught us anything it is that this list of names is a mere down payment, an opening gambit. By the time injury, late nights, defeat, verbal abuse and personal indiscretions have taken their toll; the bedraggled bunch that turn up in Sydney will bear little resemblance to today’s select band of travellers.

Conventional wisdom tells us that this is England’s best chance in a long time of leaving Australia with the Ashes. Mind you, conventional wisdom said that four years ago and four years before that. Back in 2006, conventional wisdom told us that Freddie Flintoff would be an excellent captain and a Churchillian leader of men. Conventional wisdom is, in my experience, a deceitful blighter.

Sadly, the chosen XVI was not listed name by name in alphabetical order by a senior MCC man with a plummy voice via a crackly radio. Instead, in keeping with the general mood of make-belief and wishful thinking that characterises this point in England’s Ashes cycle, we were treated to a video montage with each player given a five-second clip, as though we were watching a trailer for a particularly feeble action movie.

Adil Rashid didn’t feature in any of the clips, or indeed in the list of reserves who will be coincidentally holidaying in Australia on a sight-seeing tour of some of the nation’s renowned gymnasia. Short of donning a Graeme Swann mask or kidnapping the Nottinghamshire man’s kitten, it is hard to know what Rashid has to do to get into the England team. Personally, I think it’s a conspiracy. I’ll get back to you with the details.

'Straussy grabs asparagus stalks like this in a bunch, chomps off the tips and spits them out. Doesn't he know those are the most nutritious bits? © Getty Images

Tuesday, August 24th
Psyops was the least intimidating of all the monsters of Ancient Greece. His plan for overthrowing the gods by putting it about that Zeus was a bed-wetter who cried at romantic films and was frightened of spiders didn’t prove particularly successful. And yet, there are still devotees of Psyops around to this day, in the CIA, MI5 and even the Australian dressing room, where a touching belief in the value of virtual sledging persists.

Naturally, the teasing has become a lot more sophisticated over the years. Simon Katich has, for example, questioned whether the fence panels Matt Prior has recently installed were ethically sourced, Nathan Hauritz has already got in a dig about the lack of screwdrivers in the Swann household and Dougie Bollinger has had some pretty hurtful things to say about the way Andrew Strauss eats asparagus.

Ricky Ponting isn’t worried about the Pommies either. Why’s that Ricky? Because he’s seen all the English batsmen and the ones he hasn’t seen, he’s got footage of, so there are no surprises. Difficult to argue with that. Still, short of picking an entire team of complete unknowns, it is hard to see what might constitute a surprise in the England line-up. Gingerbread bats? Darth Vader in a tutu? Adil Rashid?

Wednesday, August 25th
I’ve never been inside a branch of the Clydesdale Bank. I’m sure it is a fine and upstanding institution. Nevertheless, I can’t help wondering whether they’re really doing themselves any favours by sponsoring a yawnfest that has spread across the English summer like a particularly virulent strain of fixture algae. My overriding impression of the CB40, and hence of its sponsor, is of dingy half-empty premises, scruffy employees in funny-coloured clothes and a vague sense of despair.

And of course, rain. The ECB showed how much they thought of the new competition by scheduling it during the wettest parts of the season (April, May, August and September). Today Somecounty and Anothershire didn’t even bother starting, it was so soggy. In the absence of any entertainment on the pitch, we almost got an interesting discussion in the booth when Mark Butcher threatened to tell us what he thought of county cricket. Luckily, Ian Ward was on hand to forestall any danger of excessive stimulation on the part of the viewer.

Thursday, August 26th
We all know about shadows: long, shady coves who follow you about on an evening. Scary, aren’t they. Well, just imagine how scary a batsman’s shadow is. All that protective headgear and extensive padding must throw some evil-looking troll-shaped shade. No wonder Ian Bell always looks so nervous. Fortunately, at The Oval last week, the umpires were on hand to whisk the players off the field the moment that the shadows began to spread their sinister menace across proceedings.

Today the umpires had to step in again, this time to protect the poor dears from the dangers of artificial light. You might think that that the presence of expensive floodlights at Lord’s means an end to the problems associated with dinginess. Well, you’d be wrong, no matter how much you’d paid for your ticket. The floodlights are not there to light up the ground when it gets dark, dear me no. That is a rather narrow interpretation of the role of a modern lighting facility. In fact, they are only there to “support” the natural light. At the precise moment when these towering £2.8million structures start to do their job and illuminate the pitch, all play must halt immediately. The batsmen can then shelter in the pavilion until the sun comes out the following morning, at which point they can safely drive back to their hotel.

‘Someone else wants to sign me?’ © IPL

Saturday 24th July
We didn’t really learn anything about Pakistan during this mini-series. Two captains, a big defeat and an unnecessarily nervy win. Same old, same old. Instead I spent most of my time observing the Australians, a breed of cricketer I find fascinating. Why don’t they give up? Every other nation on earth would have gone through the motions this morning. Where does it come from? It certainly isn’t a genetic inheritance. The English way is to give up properly and give up early, before mounting a completely futile rearguard action when all chance of victory has gone.

Australia’s captain, too, is endlessly fascinating, like a piece of abstract art. I have come up with many theories to explain the enigma that is Ricky, and my latest is that his whole public persona is a total sham, a facade. Have you ever seen Ricky smile? It is a lovely thing, a boyish grin that lights up his whole gnarly face. No one seeing that grin could fail to warm to the little fella. Yet he goes about in public wearing a mask of humourless disgruntlement, through which compliments for victorious opponents are squeezed out of the corner of his mouth, and thanks to which he comes across as pricklier than a hedgehog wearing a cactus hat. Smile, Ricky, and the world may smile with you. Or at least they might not swear at you so much.

We were also granted another seminar on Australian sporting ethics. Michael Hussey claimed a catch off Kamran Akmal. Under the rules of the game, the claiming of a catch amounts to nothing. In Aussie World, when a bloke says he caught it, the other bloke has to take the first bloke’s word. Why he should do this is not entirely clear; that’s just the way it is. On the other hand, a bloke is entitled to remain at the crease even if there is a chunk of his bat missing from where the edge was removed and everyone in the surrounding province heard the noise.

The two situations are not entirely the same and there is a thread of logic there, but it is a twisty, fragile thing that can often be mistaken for mere self-interest. Ramiz Raja thought Hussey definitely didn’t catch it. Shane Warne thought that he definitely did. Both reached and expressed their certainty on the matter within seconds, yet both also admitted that the pictures were inconclusive. Meanwhile on the radio Ian Chappell said he liked the idea of accepting a fielder’s word but he never would himself. Perhaps it would be best, after all, if we let the umpires decide.

Sunday 25th July
T&T are the most professional outfit in the Caribbean, which, admittedly, isn’t quite as much of a compliment as it might once have been, but it was enjoyable to catch up with Dwayne Bravo, both Gangas, the indefatigable Dave Mohammed, and one Keiron Pollard, international superstar. Today the wealthier of the KPs was sporting an elaborate coiffure, into which, as an aide memoire, a helpful barber had shaved the names of all five teams he is currently employed by.

The big guy was having a great time. Towards the end of his second over he stood at the start of his run-up wearing an enormous grin. Good on him, I thought, he’s clearly enjoying his work. His captain, however, did not exhibit similar signs of amusement, perhaps having on his mind the 20 runs that had come from the preceding five balls. I suppose, given Pollard’s multiple-contract lifestyle, there will always be some who mutter about his commitment to any particular cause; even to his home island.

Happily, he was able to dispel any lingering cynicism later in the game by smashing 50 from a ridiculously small number of deliveries; a half-century that included a dilscoop, some outrageously nonchalant sixes, and at least one lost ball. More importantly, he rescued his team from what seemed like inevitable defeat. He may not be a proper cricketer, but he isn’t bad.

Ricky Ponting lies in wait to nip the ankles of a young Pakistani batsman © PA Photos

I need not have worried. Vikram Solanki’s chaps in very dark green set about their task with familiar gusto. Chasing an unlikely 313, they saw themselves off in double quick time, enabling me to slip away and spend a pleasant evening discussing the futility of existence and the Clydesdale Bank 40; areas of debate with a surprising degree of overlap.

Tuesday, July 20
I awoke this morning to find that the ICC had left something unpleasant in my inbox. Earlier in the year, they came up with a mascot for the 2011 World Cup. Hands up anyone who thought it would be anything other than an elephant? But now they have a problem. The predictable public relations pachyderm lacks a name and the game’s governing body want us to help.

But what’s he like, this two-dimensional trunk-swisher? What’s his motivation? Well, according to the ICC, he loves cricket, he tries very hard, he wants to emulate his heroes and he occasionally soils the outfield. (I may have misremembered the last bit). To be honest, I didn’t warm to the fellow. Still, I am keen to do my bit, so I have emailed my suggestion. I think Giles is an excellent name for an elephant.

Wednesday, July 21
Some days I think it would be great to be Ricky Ponting. Today was not one of those days. Thanks to his mixing up the word "bat" with the word "bowl", Ricky’s troops spent the first two sessions swishing at balls that weren’t there as their leader stared forlornly from a pavilion window, looking for all the world like a young George Bush sulking because his mother won’t let him play outside.

And like the former US president, Ricky has an idiosyncratic approach to diplomacy. The prospect of defeat was leading to a little tetchiness amongst those in baggy greens so, bearing in mind that this is the Spirit of Cricket Series, after umpire Gould had a word with Hilfenhaus for mouthing off at one of the Pakistan batsmen, the Australian captain stepped in to calm the situation down by, er, having his own exchange with the same batsman. At least he didn’t use his elbows.

Thursday, July 22
A momentous day in the history of cricket as Murali closed in on 800 wickets. Naturally, I was willing him on but I had an additional reason for taking a keen interest in Sri Lankan events, having staked a modest sum on a home victory. I spent most of the morning staring at the Cricinfo live scoreboard, repeatedly jabbing the refresh button and muttering the occasional uncomplimentary remark about Ishant Sharma.

I bow to no man in my admiration for India’s tallest, skinniest fast-bowling heavy metal fan, but there is a time and a place for stubborn tail-end resistance, and when the world’s greatest spinner is on the verge of a milestone and I am on the cusp of my first winning wager of the millennium, it is no time to discover your inner Boycott. Finally, gloriously, the text read: ‘Muralitharan to Ojha, OUT!’ and lo there was much rejoicing in Galle and a damp, obscure corner of England.

Graeme Swann forgets it’s just an ODI and indulges in an unseemly spot of fist-brandishing © Getty Images

Fifty-over cricket is dead; I think we can all agree on that. It’s so last century; it’s a form of public spectacle as passé as karaoke and bear-baiting.

It is, therefore, regrettable that so many members of the general public chose to gather in Cardiff on Thursday to watch a performance of this outdated art form. Don’t they read the papers? Have they not listened to James Sutherland? The ECB had done their best to discourage spectators, holding the first two games of the series at the extremities of the island, but still, certain reactionary members of the public seem unable to get with the programme.

To mark their disgust at being forced to play such an antiquated format, Australia deliberately did not hit their straps. Failure to hit one’s straps is, as we know, a very serious matter in Antipodean circles. Outwardly they appeared the same. One or two of them retain a quaint attachment to peroxide. Shane Watson still looks as though he may burst out of his shirt, Incredible Hulk-like at any moment; indeed I believe he may have inflated himself a notch or two for the occasion. And Ricky still can’t bring himself to ride the hirsute train all the way to Beard Town.

But make no mistake, this was an Australian team playing under protest. And to reinforce the point they deliberately turned up without a single fast bowler. Instead, they wrote, “fast medium” next to Watson’s name on the team sheet; a description that frankly borders on the sarcastic. An Australian team without fast bowlers is like a bully unable to make a fist. Free from the threat of retaliation, England were able to batter their visitors with impunity and we were treated to the novel spectacle of a succession of sunset-clad tourists going to pieces at the merest sniff of leather.

The sight of Paine, Ponting, Clarke and Watson getting a little flappy with the short ball provoked Michael Holding to nostalgia. He reminded us that it was not so long ago that short-pitched bowling was considered, in England and Australia, to be, if you’ll excuse the pun, beyond the pale. This, of course, was a view not widely held in England in 1932, or indeed in Australia in 1975, but which became popular at some point during the summer of 1976 and remained so until roughly the moment that Courtney Walsh bowled his last nose-rearranging lifter.

Anyway it was a hollow victory in the end for England and their patented “no fear” cricket (a concept that boils down to a realisation, some 14 years after the introduction of fielding restrictions, that it might be a good wheeze to have a swing in the early overs). By allowing themselves to be spanked for the second time in a week, the Australians were clearly making a satirical point about the need for reform of the 50-over format. Sadly, it appears that this subtlety went completely over the heads of the spectators, who by turning up in the first place showed themselves to be completely out of touch with the modern game. Frankly, our administrators deserve better.

	'It's a bloody tough wicket to bat on but I could do it on one leg' © Getty Images

It’s always a pleasure to listen to the modern Australian commentators and by “a pleasure”, I mean “aural torture of a particularly gruelling kind”. I comfort myself with the thought that we are nearer the end than the beginning of the Australian season and that only a few one-day games with West Indies lie between me and a respite from the output of Tubs, Slats and Heals.
Australian sportsmen appear to be bound by a code of machismo, which prevents them from uttering any word or phrase that might contain anything a viewer could possibly construe as a) poetic or b) a bit girlie.

The word ‘beautiful’ only gets a look in because they mangle the vowels to such an extent that it is no longer recognisable to the human ear. During Sunday’s game, Tubs did venture off-piste with the phrase, ‘a windy woof’, but it was a bloke’s ‘windy woof’, more of a bark than a woof and anyway, it is essentially gibberish and gibberish is firmly bloke territory. Even helium-voiced guest star Gilly, only the second Australian man ever to cry, was keeping it strictly manly.

In the midst of this tight-lipped, hairy-chested working men’s club, in which jargon like Gees (G-Force) and Kays (Kilometres) is the only concession to verbal inventiveness, it is left to dear old Mark Nicholas to fly the flag for showbiz. So I was dismayed to hear this Noel Coward of cricket commentators at one point describing Australia as ‘almost rampant’. Almost? I guarantee, if he had been safely back in old Blighty, there would have been no adverb involved and the ‘r’ of rampant would have rolled on for several seconds. Don’t let the testosterone get to you, Mark, be loud and be proud!

As well as getting in touch with my masculine side, I’ve been reacquainted this winter with that famous Aussie objectivity. Tubs, who can remember a time when Australia were pants, is the most generous. Heals, forever on the verge of launching into ‘Under The Southern Cross I Stand’, offers his praise of the opposition through gritted teeth. There is nothing particularly malicious here and in many ways it is heart-warmingly familiar, like visiting your bigoted but good-natured old uncle. But things are so one-eyed in that commentary booth, it could be mistaken for a pirate convention.

Take, for example, the pitch. We’ve all heard of drop-in pitches. Well, at the WACA, they have developed the rotating pitch. Early on, the track was mercilessly flat and only the sheer brilliance of the frighteningly muscular Ryan Harris and Morrissey look-alike Clint McKay enabled them to winkle out a Pakistani wicket or seven. But at the interval, the groundsman flicked a switch, the pitch flipped 180 degrees and Australia were compelled to chase on a minefield. Thank goodness then that Australian batsmen are so brilliant or they might not have succeeded.

As for Mr Afridi’s oral adventures, little more need be said. The sight of the Pakistani captain attempting to swallow a cricket ball whole, like a python dislocating its jaw to consume an ostrich egg, will be played continuously across the cricket globe, to the great amusement of everyone (go on, Pakistan fans, I bet you chuckled, just a little). And you could hear the admiration of the Slats-Heals-Tubs axis of manliness. This was proper ball-tampering. None of that delicate seam-picking, no furtive pocketfuls of compost, no bottle tops, ointments or boiled sweets, just a virile, red-blooded cricketer standing up proudly and taking a healthy bite of leather, cork and soil.

Good on yer, Shahid.

	Siddle: refreshingly toxic © Getty Images

Cricket is like a soap opera and if you don’t watch every episode, you’ll find yourself failing to recognise some of the characters. For instance if you were one of those heathens who put your hands over your ears, closed your eyes and made “La la la la!” noises during the Champions League, you will find yourself at something of a disadvantage during the current 50-over bash in India.

Of course, some of the old characters that you know and love are still around. There’s grizzled old Punter, who is always grumbling but secretly has a heart of gold; saintly Uncle Sachin, who listens to everyone’s problems without ever complaining; and the villainous Bhaji, who is pretending to have turned over a new leaf, but who everyone knows is bound to do something despicable any day now.

But now that our Australian chums are starting to come apart like badly assembled action figures (these plastic Paines, Clarkes and Lees might look sexy but they just don’t have the staying power of those clunky old Aussies you got in the seventies), the selectors are being forced to reach deeper into the back of the domestic-cricket fridge, past the leftovers and those on the turn, to see if there’s anything they can use. As a result, for the casual non-Australian cricket watcher, parts of the scorecard might as well be written in Klingon. Henriques? Bollinger? McKay?

But here’s where the Champions League comes in. Those of us who watched (nearly) every twist and turn of that pilot show are fully up to speed on these new characters and are able to avoid some embarrassing faux pas when discussing the current series with taxi drivers, undercover vice-squad officers or members of Parliament.

We know, for example, that Clint McKay is not the cheroot-chomping, Stetson-wearing sidekick of cowboy Jesse Ryder. Moises Henriques is not the dictator of a small island off the Mozambique coast with a solid gold throne and a personal bodyguard of Amazonian mercenaries. And Doug Bollinger is not a cartoon character devised to help sell champagne to the Australian market.

In fact, these three have something else in common. They all come from the shelf marked, “medium”. We can quibble about which is medium-fast or which is fast-medium, but essentially, they all fall into that large grey area on the bowling speed dial between “Collingwood” and “Steyn”.

Now I have to say that this is one plot development that I have my doubts about. There is always room for one trundler in an Australian side. But it goes somewhat against the laws of cricket nature to see so many yellow-shirted warriors whose game plan is not the reassuringly savage “hit ‘em in the face and make ‘em bleed” but the rather English “kind of put it on a length and wobble it about a bit”.

Thank goodness, then, for Peter Siddle. If he'd been born in Todmorden rather than Traralgon, he'd probably be saddled with some nursery-rhyme nickname like Siddley or Siddles. Instead, he goes by the name of Vicious. He used to tear down trees with his bare hands (probably) and now he hurts batsmen for a living. He is Merv Hughes with a razor and access to a treadmill. Good on yer, Siddley.

	Dino alert: Ishant does his thing © Getty Images

After the sweaty, rustic charm of the Champions League, the resumption of international festivities has brought about a welcome elevation of tone. Wednesday’s clash of continents was full of good things, and whilst Sunday belonged to Australia, India struck back to stir the sediment of our jaded imaginations with the enlivening possibility of a genuinely suspenseful series. Dhoni, of course, was immense but it was the reinvigorated Ishant Sharma whom I most enjoyed watching, his angular, bent-forward lope to the crease putting me in mind of a velociraptor, ball perched between claws, intent on savaging the batsman’s knuckles (battered and swollen metacarpals being the tell-tale sign of an Ishant attack).

And with two of the game’s greatest batsmen on the same field of play, it was an ideal opportunity for the collector of cricket images to acquire more pieces for the memory. The batting displays in the Tendulkar and Ponting wings of my mind’s museum are already pretty crowded, so during the current series I have been on the look out for cameos, intriguing Tendlya or Punter-related items of sentimental or curiosity value.

A good collector has to be patient and wait for the right moment. On Wednesday it came in the 62nd over, when Lord Sachin was called upon to take human form and intervene at square leg. His stooping, tumbling dive was the everything-falling-out-of-pockets scramble across the platform of a portly businessman whose briefcase has become trapped in the door of a departing train. Yet he reached the ball. Returning the offending item to his captain with underarm disdain, he dusted down his suit and reassembled his composure. It was Tendulkar encapsulated: successful yet free of swagger; whole-hearted yet dignified.

Perhaps the same could also be said of the one-day format, still packing them in after forty years. Fifteen overs into the second innings, with the Aussie run-chase beginning to sigh like a yellow dinghy with a slow puncture, the atmosphere had eased from febrile raucousness to contented hubbub. But the double-tiered Vidarbha Cricket Stadium, an immense bowl of light, remained packed throughout. This summer’s Natwest Series, another 50-over bash assailed from all quarters as a motion-going-through exercise was also played out, under autumnal skies, to full houses.

It seems counter-intuitive then, that when cuts in the Future Tours Programme are being contemplated, so many people in the game seem to favour the end of a format that has remained so popular with the public. But then there has always been a perverse streak of anti-populism in our game, going right back to the 19th century. Those Victorian gentlemen of the MCC who reluctantly organised the county championship preferred sparsely attended three-day mid-week cricket to the popular weekend matches of the northern leagues. And a hundred years on, the English cricket establishment looked down its nose at the spectators who flocked to the Gillette Cup and the John Player League. The aristocratic distaste for making a profit may be long gone but the high-handed tendency to overlook the preferences of paying spectators lingers.